Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Another Stranger in a Strange Land

My very good friend Stephan from Downers Groove is coming today to the Queen City!!!! Can you believe that Charlotte is called like that? The Queen City? Can't believe they got the nerve to name this dump like that.

And I've taken all the necessary precautions for his visit, including wipping out of beer the local supermarket. . . hehehe. Oh shit! I forgot. Maybe some food would also be nice, wouldn't it? Nah. . . I'm just gona keep Pizza Hut's phone number handy these days! Cheers!

On Snowblades and Snowboards

I am in pain. . . every single part, bone, joint, and corner of my body is in pain. And is not just the muscles due to the exercise, but the pain also comes due to some. . . er. . . falling? Yes, I hit the ground a couple of times and that shit wasn't as soft as it was suppose to be.

As I stated before, I got me the snowblades and that was such a good decision. Those are not really that fast, but still you can manage to get some pretty decent speed. Besides, snowblades are way more easy to handle than regular skies. I think from now on I'm gona stick to the snowblades and try to improve my style with them. I didn't rent poles when I first got the snowblades, but I found out that I still need them, specially when I was in the chairlift area and I needed to propel myself, those come very handy. So I just rent two from the ski place (it was only $3!!).

I am the one with the crazy hatWe went to Winterplace in West Virginia, which is a nice mountain. I would say is perfect for people like me who think that they are the best skier to ever set foot on this planet, but that actually need to improve their skills "a little bit more". You can go all the way to the top and ski down to the base of the mountain through some mix of beginners and intermediate trials, which is pretty cool. And as I said, while I was using the snowblades everything went smooth and I didn't fall at all, I really felt that I was an expert. So confident I was in my skills that I had the "great" idea of borrowing the snowboard of one of my friends.

Good God! Talk about a good idea turned bad. . . You see, this was the first time my three friends were skiing and they choose to try the snowboard. I told them that it wasn't a very clever decision because from what I've heard, the snowboard is more difficult. And when we were in the mountain it seemed to me that they were falling like every three meters! I even got upset and told them to stop being so fucking stupid and try to stay on their two feet for more than ten seconds at a time! Seriously, it was frustrating! But they kept falling no matter what.

Finally one of my friends got fed up and he said that he had had it; that he was too sored to snowboard more and that he was going back to the Main House to have some hot chocolate. At that time was when I had this "wonderful" idea of borrowing his snowboard in order to show my other two friends how easy it was to stay on your two feet. Talk about big mistakes in my life and that one. I made it to one of the beginners trials and after falling every three meters or so, I was able to climb on the chairlift and head to the top of the easiest trial of them all. Once I made it to the top of the beginners trial and while jumping out of the chairlift I landed face first on the snow -the people that work there had to stop the whole lift and help me get up. Embarrassing. And then, while snowboarding down the hill and heading straight to the trees with a terrifying scream, and landing on the hard snow, I realized why those poor fuckers had been falling all the time: that shit is not easy!.

But as hard headed as I am, I decided that it was just the first time and that I had to try again. So I climbed in the chairlift only to fall again at the top and to have to be helped by the same staff people. Embarrassing again. And I have to point out here that it had been snowing and it was freezing cold, so the snow wasn't soft and smooth but in a lot of parts it was frozen, and you just can't steer on frozen snow! To make a long story short, I manage to stay on my feet for quite a while which resulted in poor Jean-Francois going very fucking fast downhill and at some point loosing control of the snowboard only to have a massive fall out on the hard-as-concrete snow. And the thing is that once you fall, the snowboard is still attached to you! That was a very VERY painful experience. As I said at the beginning of this post, I am in tremendous pain. . .

So from now on, I'm just gona forget about the whole snowboard thing, because obviously I didn't come with the snowboard chip installed in my brain, and going to concentrate on skies and blades for the next time. Which by the way I hope it will be at some point in January again. . . hehe can't wait!

Monday, December 26, 2005

They call it Snowblading

I don't know about you people out there, but today I'm going snow skiing! Yeah! Heading to West Virginia to hit the slopes in Style. But I won't be using skies this time, and unlike my friends I won't be trying the snowboard: I'm gona go snowblading! (snow blades are those very short skies that have the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle, or the shape of a girl if you prefer, and don't require poles).

hope I'll survive!I was thinking about trying the snowboard this time, and for weeks I pictured myself going down those black diamonds with my two feet attached to that board, but the moment I walked into the rental place I changed my mind. I had like a divine intervention, a voice that whispered in my ear "go for the blades dude" while my friends were protesting my change of heart.

Oh, and my so-called friends; the ones I'm hanging out with today: they've never skied before, ever, and they're gona try the snowboard head-on. You'd think that they like to take risks, but the truth of the matter is that they're not very clever. For instance, they believe that you can put the snowboard under your arm and catch the lift. . . and that if you ask nicely, you could ride the lift back to the base of the mountain. I did my part explaining how things work once you're there, but they think they can bend the rules. We'll see. You either have your skies/snowblades/snowboard attached firmly to your feet or your going no where in that lift; and by the same token you can either ski down the mountain or fall down or crawl down, but you ain't ridding that shit back (it is technically impossible!).

So I don't know about you, and I really don't know about my skiing buddies. . . but I'm gona take this handsome 5'7 Latin Lover body I'm trapped in, and push it to the limit going down the mountain!

Cheers!

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Hellooooww?!!!

Even though I told her that I was sleeping when the phone first rang, the truth of the matter is that I was already awake. It was noon and I was under my blankets, trying to forget that mild headache that comes after too much wine the previous night and hoping to fall asleep again so that I could get some badly needed rest. My cell phone's screen displayed a "Caller-ID blocked" sign, and when I picked it up the first time, there was just silence on the line, as well as the second time. The third time I let the cell phone rang a couple of times before picking it up; I've always thought that if you let it ring, the odds of a call getting through are greater. Don't know if it is true or not, but I've always believed it works. My parents have two phone lines and one of them is a private line, so my caller id doesn't pick up on that number and that's why I thought the phone call was originating from my home town back in South America.

After the third ring I picked it up and a very familiar "hellooooww?!!!" made my jaw drop and my heart rate go through the roof. It was Stephanie; my very sweet and very cute Steffi.


Very cute, and very silly...
That was a phone call that I wasn't expecting, but at the same time I knew it could come any day. The last time we talked was back in summer right after she left. As much as I wanted to call her more often and to tell her about my things and to hear about her life, I had enough courage and balls to realize that the sooner we stopped talking on the phone, the sooner I'd be able to put all her memories in the back burner and move on. I sat on my hands several times during the next weeks and months in order not to call her; and as time and distance started to be more evident, and our sporadic e-mails got shorter and further apart, I was able to put a lit on all my memories of her. Her void in my daily life was then filled with other friends and plans here and there and a lot of work; but as much as I tried to stuff that void with whatever, the more evident it felt that i was just trying to fill a hole in my life.

But live goes on, and as farewells and broken hearts occur, the truth of the matter is that always someone else will show up to brighten one's path. Old memories and feelings will slowly drift to the side of the brain where events look like history, and not like a very near past reality, allowing you to get on with your life. So for the next months we just exchanged e-mails and messages, and a letter here and a postcard there about daily life in Europe and Southern US. Just like good old friends.

I was planning in giving her a phone call for New Year's in order to say hi and to just talk about what was going on around here. I was expecting that phone call to be nothing more than an exchange of stories and updates, and also about plans for the new year and stuff like that (I had forgotten what we really talk about when we talk. . .) I wasn't planning in talking about what we had had and that now is long gone, or the things we did and didn't. Whatever happened between us lies where it belongs, in the past. I see her now as an awesome girl that I once had the chance to get to know and hang out with, and whom I would like to keep in contact with for the foreseeable future. But in all honestly, I wasn't really thinking about calling her: my plan was actually to send her a long and nice e-mail and maybe, just maybe, give her a call at some point next year. The reasons for not calling being that I was kind of afraid to face whatever feelings I still have for her (yes, I'm a chicken) and also because we used to talk on the phone for hours at a time, and now I didn't want to be disappointed that after five minutes into a phone call we would ran out of things to say, being just an exchange of stories about "life lately". I kind of wanted to keep the memories of our time together untarnished by today's reality. Again, like if I had forgotten what our endless and circular conversations were about.

I'd say the first ten minutes of our conversation this morning went like I'd envisioned them: I told her what was going on with me and my life in the Bible Belt, give her some updates in the new places to go out in downtown, and gave her an update on some of my plans; she told me about her school and some of the things that she'd been up to. Then, the next three hours we talked about pretty much nothing in particular. Or a better way to understand this is to say that even though we spoke English, we end up talking in our very own dialect. I remember, for example, that we went back and forth for more than half an hour about me telling her that I'm shy and how outgoing she is, and her telling me exactly the opposite, that she's shy and that I am the outgoing one. We remembered situations and use them as examples of each one's point of view and even gave insights on those situations, and we kept going on and on and arguing on the same topic and laughing on pretty much the silliest conversation there have ever been. But if you give it a thought, it is also a very meaningful one: talk for more than three hours without really thinking that it's been that long and without thinking that you have to come up with something smart to say. Fuck that, I like to leave smart conversations on current topics for when I'm drunk!
When my right ear got hot for holding my cell phone and I move it to the left one, I saw the time elapsed on my cell phone's screen and it was already an hour. At that time I told her that this phone call was gona be too expensive for her and that I didn't want her to fill for "personal bankruptcy" because of me, and next thing I know, she was telling me that we'd already been talking for more than two hours!

At the end we had to do as we always did: count till three and hang up. It took us another fifteen minutes or so to be able to do the "1-2-3-bye", or maybe it took us that time to actually count from one to three. I don't know. She was going out tonight and needed her usual hour and half to get ready or so. It is actually much less, but when I mentioned this to her, it was another ten minutes going back and forth about it.

And looking back to this past summer, if we were able to get lost in words for hours at a time, we were also able to just be with each other just hanging out, doing nothing in particular other than enjoying being side by side. But now that I give it a second thought, there was always a lot of talking between us. Was it maybe because we were either sipping a cup of coffee or drinking vodka and redbull when we were together that we couldn't shut up? Today I also had to tell her like twenty times to shut up or to just be quiet and that I didn't want to listen to her because she was telling me either some silly things or was trying just to bullshit me, making her get upset, or more "silly upset". She makes this silly voice when she gets upset but doesn't really get upset that cracks me up; she talks like if she was an spoiled eight years old girl and that is so funny! She's also studying Spanish in school and read to me some stories from her text book and. . . have I ever mention how HOT it is to hear a girl whose native tongue is not Spanish, talking in Spanish? It is to me, call me crazy but I love it!

So we finally hung up, but not before we manage to squeeze a little flirt here and there, and we told each other a lot of nice things. Nothing out of this world, just sweet words between friends together with a lot of good wishes for New Year's. I guess the lack of coordination on this post mirrors some odd feelings that I still have for her, a combination of longingness, some great memories, and the realization that our relationship has evolved into some sort of long distance friendship. And even though I got a bit sad after our conversation, it was very nice to talk to her and to realize that even though time and distance has definitely changed a lot of things between us, we still manage to be the two silly friends who used to waste hours at a time going back and forth about who will hang up first.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

On Hell and Car Repairs

Don't you die on me!For me hell has to be a place that is hot; hot as hell. But I won't be wearing my swimming trunks, not even my Speedo with which I used to "break the waves" when I was younger. Hell is place where I have to wear a suit, a tie and will always be late for an appointment; a place where I'll be sweating like a horse and with no way to cool down. Hell for me would also be a place where I'd have to deal with mechanics and a broken down car; always something going wrong with the car and no matter how much money and time is spent trying to fix it, the car is not gona run smoothly. Hell is a place where a guy in the front desk of a car shop sporting little horns, a goat tee and a trident will greet me with a big smile repeating the words "everything is gona be alright" and will let me loose in a car with the line "everything is fine now; if something is wrong, just bring it back".

Don't you understand motherfucker that if I took the thermostat out of my little car is because after not two nor three, but four visits to my previous mechanic, the car was still overheating? And by installing a brand new thermostat (like the previous two) things are not gona fall magically in place fixing whatever problem is under the hood? If you assure me that by putting back a thermostat things are gona be ok, then why the fuck do I have to call you back trying hard not to say how much of a piece of shit you and your mechanics are?! I didn't go to the AAA shop just because I like your awful coffee and your overpriced service, but because I really wanted to get rid of a fucking problem that was bugging me! But after an unexpected self-inflicted Christmas gift of $687, why is it that it's overheating again? Maybe because you guys are just worthless, expensive as hell but worthless! Odd description, don't you think?

And I didn't take my car to my regular mechanic because that dude just cannot be on time for a very simple appointment. I would love to hang out by his shop waiting for him, but I have stuff to do, people expect to see me at the office on time and looking busy and not just waiting for him out in the cold. Why is it that people from Latin America just can't be on fucking time? I completely understand that shit happens: tires go flat, you take an extra twenty minutes in the shower, a wrong turn might be taken and you cannot make it on time, fully understand that. But how about a phone call saying that you're gona be late. That will be cool. And how about if you have an appointment with a client [me in this case] and you just don't show up because you forgot. . . can't you just hold a thought for more than twenty four hours in your brain without becoming retarded? Get a little daily planner and write down appointments for fucks sake! Just because I'm a nice guy it doesn't mean that I don't get frustrated and upset for your lack of respect and puntuality.
You see, my mechanic got on my nerves the last time I saw him and I decided to go to another place where they could not only look at what was wrong with my little car but that could also be on time. And there I go, spending money in the most expensive car shop in town and getting nothing other than a headache in return.

And to my little car: dude, is ok to have an ache here and there, you're not brand new after all, but don't start coughing and running temperature when I've already committed a big chunk of my funds in a whole variety of activities that happen around this time of the year. I know that is not your fault, and is not that you're just a spoiled little car wanting to get my attention, you know that I care for you. But don't be a biotch and get the fuck better! Our relationship is not like those marriages back in the days "until death do us apart", and as much as I like you I know that there's a big chance that we will not be holding hands when the next decade arrives. And I'm not threatening to drive you to the junkyard, of course not, but there's just certain amount of bullshit a human being can take. You've witnessed that I've had to put up with a lot of it ever since we hook up, but the last person thing I expect bullshit from is you little piece of shit my little super fast red car. So please, just between you and me, get better once and for all and I'll throw a tune-up just for you, how about that?! And if you want, I can drive you to that place near the border with South Carolina where all this pretty girls with tiny little bikinis wash cars while pretending that they're having a blast doing it. That will have to wait until the summer of course, but I'm a man who treasures his word and I'll do my part. . . but you go ahead and do yours and get the fuck better, pleeeeeease?

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

You Dirty Dawg!

I stepped on dog shit today, and I consider that as one of the worst things that can happen to a human being. Ok, not the worst thing, but way up there in the top ten. Good thing it wasn't before a date, or an office meeting, or a job interview, or a frikking piñata; it was actually after work. I got home, dig out of my laundry basket a pair of jeans, got a [clean] tee shirt, a sweater, my Dr. Marteens and went to do my thing. After a couple of stops here and there, I was on my way out and being the lazy boy that I am, I cut through the front yard instead of using the sidewalk. The grass was wet due to the sprinkler system but as I was wearing boots, it didn't matter. Until I felt something softer than wet grass.

Clean after yourself, your mother doesn't work hereI knew immediately that it was dog poo. You can tell that the surface under your shoe feels softer, like the shoe slides sideways a little bit, and when you lift it there's a little resistance, like if the dog poo wants to give you some more luv. And of course the sole of my boots is not flat, but has all this texture to it, so the shit just gets in there and I bet you it just feels like home because it is a fucking difficult job to get it out of there.

But to step on shit is OK: I mean if you're hiking and you step on a big turd that's cool; by the time you finish your hike that shit is gona be either gone or you're gona be smelling like shit, so that makes no difference. But to have to jump on your car and get that awful sensation that every single particle of air has been poisoned and filled with that smell is just nerve breaking. Some scientist should look into the chemical structure of dog poo and isolate in an equation the secret that allows such sharp odor to stay in the air for so long. Then he should apply that to some fancy perfume. I can even hear the add on the radio "Wear it on Monday, and you can still smell it while in church on Sunday morning. Buy one get three free".

But stepping on dog shit is all right, it could have bean a mine or a bear trap. The real torture is to get all that shit out of the shoe. And that fucking smell, good fucking Lord, that smell. It takes long time to wash the sole with hot water and bleach and detergent and more hot water and use a scrub that at the end of the ordeal is gona end up in the dumpster anyway just to get around 70% of the shit smell out of the shoe. And even though winter has been FINALLY hitting southern US with a nice and chilly wind, I end up sweating like a horse trying to get rid of all that poo.

And wass up with dog shit. What did they feed dawgs that make their shit smell so fucking bad! And don't even want to think what that poor dawg that left that Christmas present for me on the wet grass had been eating. I know that dogs eat whatever the fuck you put on their plate [sounds like my eating habits actually] but most of the time they eat this concentrate that comes in colors as natural as purple and blue. I think I've never eaten anything blue, other than candy. Poor dogs, not in vain the food in my high school's cafeteria was refer to as "dawg food". And the thing is that that dawg poo attached to my shoe killed the night tonight; and I'll be damn but tonight was suppose to be Live Music Night! Was, in the past, because it is not.

I gave it some thought and I remembered that I have stepped on dog shit FOUR times in my life, two of those here in CLT! What a shitty town, my friends, this where cool Jean-Francois currently inhabits. . .

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Out in the Distance

Can you hear them. . .?

Out in the distance,

bombs are falling

on the floor

followed by their drunk owner, and his bar stool.

Jager Bombs.

Jagermeister,

mixed with RedBull.

Where the horizon meets the full moon,

they're being mixed

for me

and maybe for you;

and for me,

and me,

and me. . .

Hopefully

I won't fall from my bar stool,

while

holding a glass in my hand.

[better ask for a plastic glass tonight].

The Party Wagon to Hell and Beyond

is leaving the station. . .

adios!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Like in Those Fancy Buffets

Should I waste my time blogging about the phone call that I got today? The truth of the matter is that there's definitely no chemistry whatsoever between us, and even though we have to be in contact, what is the point in doing it if there's nothing to talk about.

It seems to me that every time I get that phone call, I have to end up explaining things that I just don't want to explain. Even more so, if I don't mention what my whereabouts are is because I just don't want her to know, and for that matter the people around her. And today I got the same question like four times in a row, and I answered knowing that she knows the answer but just wants to hear it from me. I just can imagine her on the other side of the line rising her eyebrows and saying "oh, really?", like if she didn't know.

My rational self tells me that at some point our relationship has to change, perhaps evolve, and somehow get alone like two people who really care for each other; but the truth of the matter is that everytime I talk to her, I feel like if I was getting a root canal procedure. I feel that I am not interacting with her, just having to put up with her and dodging her stupid questions and stories that in all honesty I could care fucking less about.

It is horrible to refer to a sister in these terms, but we've never been friends, not even while we were growing up; hell I can't remember the two of us getting alone not even when I was still wetting my bed. We shared an apartment when we were in college and we didn't kill each other because back in those days there was a God. When I went to live in China we had a "good" relationship because the contact between us was as sporadic as a snow storms in Charlotte. Upon my arrival back in South America and during the following year or so, I would venture to say that we had a pretty decent relationship. We were neighbors in the same apartment complex; and maybe the fact that I became best friends with her two roommates and a happy drunkard from Monday to Monday, might have worked as a smoke screen between our abysmal differences.

The last time we share the same roof was when I first moved to the US and for the first couple of months we both surf on that big wave that we have created while being neighbors and happy drunkards. But the wave hit the shore one day and took with it the little respect that I had for her and the willingness to put up with her bullshit. There were entire weeks that we couldn't even look at each other's face without having to yell and point fingers, and I realized that it was just a waste of time and energy to try to sort out whatever differences we might have had. I gave up completely on our relationship and turned into nothing more than an ice sculpture, like those that you see adorning fancy buffets on New Year's Celebrations, retreating into my own world and giving less than shit to whatever she was up to.

She moved back to South America and I don't even remember going to the airport to say good-bye; or maybe I did, but if I did it was such an uneventful memoir for me that it had completely faded away. The next wave of e-mails after her departure was just a collection of "How not to Treat Someone Who Shares your Genes", filled with so much resentment that I re-filed her e-mail account under spam and got all her messages delivered to the trash can. I believe during that time, when we were roommates here in the US and were suppose to be mature enough to apply some emotional intelligence to our relationship, we hit a point of no return. The sad reality is that I'm not sad at all about that; and perhaps the most horrible thing, is that I believe we bring out the worst of each other when we're together: I become a walking iceberg, a fucking piece of rock even though I'm completely the opposite; and she becomes a crazy bitch, even though _______ [fill in the blank as you please, as that's the only personality trace that I know of her].

We talked on the phone today and I had to take a deep breath before dialing. When you have to ask "what's new?" more than three times in a row and get the same fucking answer from me, the best is to hang up and try some other day. We didn't argue today, but I just told her that I was busy doing something and that we will talk some other day. She acted like if we were best friends after a long hiatus in communication, and like if we needed to catch up with the latest news. I just think how hypocrite she was for giving me an "awww" when I told her that I was busy and had to hang up, as the last thing that I told her about me and my life was perhaps when we were happy drunkards -and that was last century.

There you have it, I've wasted a whole forty minutes or so talking about something that I didn't want to and about someone that I could care less about: my older sister. And as horrible as it sounds to refer to a sibling in those terms, this blog wasn't conceived to portray emotions and feelings that aren't true.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

On Arguing

Check out a map you motherfucker iDiOt!!!!He is not a friend of mine but someone that I know; a friend of a friend. At some point early this year he quit his job and moved to Bulgaria because his brother/cousin/friend/lover or whoever, was opening a bar/hotel/pub/whore house or whatever business over there. The only thing I knew was that it was suppose to be on the shores of the Black Sea.

Today I learnt from a co-worker that he's back in town. Maybe things didn't work out as expected for him, but nobody really knows. The thing is that when my co-worker told me the story, he used a tone of disdain, prepotency and smartass-ness, like if he was trying to say "let's make fun of him". And just to add some extra punch to his shallow comments and his lame laugh he added ". . .and who the hell knows where Bulgaria is".

I've noticed lately that I blush very often and for a whole variety of reasons: when I'm very happy or embarrassed, or when I'm nervous or stressed, and definitely when I get upset. And I even blush when I notice that I've blushed. I'm sure I must look like a chameleon, I swear!

So I blushed today when he told me the story. First I felt bad for that guy because I remember that he sold everything in order to go there; I even got an invitation to his farewell party but I don't remember going, and to think that he's back again I'm sure is a hard thing for him. But I'll say that only my cheeks blushed a little bit due to that thought. What made me go through the whole spectrum of 16,000 shades of red that mother nature has to offer, was my co-worker's daring ignorance. I thought for a moment on lecturing him on what lies beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains and the NC coast [aka the WORLD!], but I chose to relax my shoulders and to give him a manly slap on his arm with the back of my hand, right before storming out of the water cooler area.

I believe you have to learn to choose your battles; and even though I had to do some deep breathing to calm myself down, I've grown to know that trying to argue with a motherfucking beast with a fool will turn me into an even bigger fool.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Supermodel

Lots of catch up to do tonight, because besides being very cute, she's also a very prolific writer.


Did I mention that I print the posts that I really like?


There's a position open, further north, and I would like to apply for it; a very attractive position if you allow to me to elaborate a bit. And after several months of reading about it, I still don't understand why isn't there a looooong list of males looking forward to apply for it. Hmmm another mystery afoot, or maybe this is one of the best kept secrets out there.

I do believe I have some of the attributes needed to become the "employee of the month" from day one until the end of times. As you can tell by the crooked picture above these lines, I've been doing my homework and the more I learn about this attractive position, the more I feel there could be good understanding. A casual observer would say that the bar has been set quite high for the person that will end up taking those responsibilities, but just by looking at the position, and how attractive and interesting it looks, I do have to say that the skills needed come as a bargain. This is just a personal comment and should not be taken into consideration during the hiring process, but the bar should be raised even higher: fluent in three languages, "train station" type of punctuality, should know the classics by heart, excellent kisser, should own a blog, must be able to play tennis, if anyone applying for the position owns a PS2 should be disqualified immediately of course, and so on and so forth.
And whether I get hired or not, or whether I'm able to apply or not, the truth is that that position is already very special for me.

The next step will be to re-hire my travel agent first thing tomorrow today in the morning. I had to fire him late last week for failing to produce a reservation for a flight to the Southern Hemisphere. No hurt feelings, I hope, even though I called him a "useless sonofabitch" for his lack of results and I even accused him of completely screwing up my whole life -I know, I got carried away. His next task will be to find me a window sit to a very windy city [hopefully the runway will be long enough when I land there] and I'm gona ask him to book me a super intense course on event planning with strong emphasis on how to master the specifics of place, date and time [but I don't know when to take that course, or where, or whether I'd prefer it early in the morning or late in the evening or during my lunch break; I just no sé josé].

I'm under twenty one... therefore the orange band

And now that I'm at it, let's just go ahead and upload quite a few things that have been revolving around my head. Don't know where to begin. . . Let me just say that the writing about nostalgia was a sad story, it was very well written but very sad. It saded me to read the recount of that time. It seems to me that when you write about your past, you're writing about someone completely different from you: like a friend or perhaps a sister, but not you. Somehow I can't picture you going to organized religion meetings, being withdrawn, and overall not being as in control of daily life as you're today. I could also relate to a lot of the things that you wrote about: checking the e-mails, replaying footage in my mind over and over again, etc. And it also had me thinking about my own past and some of my relationships. It had me thinking that once you get over a person, and look back at those moments, it is just impossible to believe that you'd felt that way; I mean, that you'd been so sad and broken hearted for someone that today is nothing more than a passing thought.

And to read that saded me so much that I had to go on a drinking spree this weekend, therefore the lack of updates. . .

No actually there was a lot of plans this weekend and they all included drinking, not as much as last halloween, but enough to have a constant headache from dawn to dusk yesterday and today. On the brighter side I have to give myself quite a few kudos, because on Friday night I had only three Newcastle and came back home in my car, I didn't stay drinking like if it was the end of the world. And I think I'm beginning to outgrow my beloved Newcastle: I like how it tastes, but Saturday woke up with a very annoying headache, and that night the thought of drinking Newcastle again gave me an uneasy feeling. And quite a few extra kudos have to be given to this red haired dude because I was a very responsible drunkard Saturday night. We went to this sports bar [I got that orange band pictured above for being underage] to celebrate the birthday of a friend of a friend of a friend of mine, some dude in other words, and I thought there was gona be men as well as girls, but it turned out to be pretty much only men [only screwdrivers as I usually say]. Late that night when we all have gulped quite a few cold ones, I had the good idea of drinking a Jager Bomb instead of the usual tequila shots that I call for. Other dudes at the table had tequila and it killed them, but the combination of Jagermeister and Red Bull actually went down quite easy and it didn't fucked me up too bad. From now on I'm gona put the Tequila shots on hold and gona start calling the Jager shots!

Have many more things to blog about but some hours of sleep sounds like a better plan right now. My friend Stephan, from Downers Groove, may be coming down here for New Year's and as far as I understood is wife gave him permission to come by himself, this all has to be confirmed asap, but whether is new year's or January, it is gona happen.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

... at his best

As the Holiday Season is approaching at a light speed, and it's crystal clear by now that I'm gona be cuddling up with no one while the local radio stations play non-stop Christmas music, I've been thinking about some ways of blowing up money investment decisions.

Burning down the treeFirst of all I am not gona be getting a Christmas Tree this year. For starters, I don't have a single piece of decoration or lights to hang on it, not even a base for it, so I'd rather take those greens that will anyway end up in the dumpster early next month, and either save them [not spending them] or will donate them to one of the stores at the mall [buy shit].

The other decision that I made is that I'm going to decline the invitation from my family in law to spend Christmas with them. The reason is that if I go there I'll have to buy them presents and the thought of going to a mall to look for stuff for SEVEN people is more than I can take. Sorry, but "I already have plans for that day" is gona be my line.

When it comes to buying presents, I'm going to get stuff for only four people: me, me, me and someone else [hahaha me!me!me!]. Actually there's a handful of people that are gona be included in my list, but someone very special is gona a receive, well, a very special gift. I know that she's gona love it and this proves that when you know someone, really know someone, that little something is gona hit the right note. And somehow I have the feeling that something is coming my way too. . . we'll see. Have to mail it tomorrow if I want to reach its destination across the water on time though.

I thought a long list of "investment decisions" earlier today, but somehow I can't recall the rest. . . Just for the record and pending further elaboration I'd say that a [couple of] trip[s] to the NC mountains in order to hit the slopes is a certainty. I mean, I can very well go to sleep at 7 PM on the last day of the year if a skiing trip pops up in the horizon for new year's day -but that's a big, very big IF. New Year's is my favorite night of the year second only to Halloween, so that means party and several Vodka and Redbull glasses and perhaps some tequila shots and pictures and friends and perhaps a club and a bar and another club and meeting random people and making "friends" and so on and so forth: "Jean-Francois at his Best"™, I guess is how they call that shit.

OK, enough for now, have to finish level 29 before going to bed.

Hauling Ass

Level 26 of my game and going strong! I finally managed to climb that mountain from level 13 [an un-fucking-lucky number after all] and end up delivering my goods. Ever since I've been hauling ass, battling cops, border patrol agents, CIA operatives and other bad boys, and completing level after level with such recklessness and determination that you know what? See ya'll later, got some goodies I have to deliver. . .

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Tangle of Thorns

It has been widely documented throughout my life that there's nothing like blowing money in order to make me feel better worse. But is not the actual blowing of the money that makes me feel sad, which anyway I could always return to the store whatever I got, or the next pay check will cover those few bucks spent, or I could put whatever shit I got and don't want on ebay and get some of the money back, so it's not about the money. What prompted me to go on a shopping spree and the specific items that I got is what lies at the center of my behavior and feelings today.


So let's begin from what I bought today: a Playstation 2. You read it right, a PS2. And I can hear the thousand of readers that I have in this little blog thinking "Are you fucking out of your mind Jean-Francois? Did you go like into a coma early this century and have just waken up? Dude, the PS2 is on its way out, even more so, there's a new one coming up next year and if you have read any front page of any news service lately, you would know that there's a new xbox hot out of the oven waiting for you! Why the hell did you get a PS2 so late in the game?!"

But let me give you a little insight on my compulsive purchase carefully planned purchase decision today.
In one hand I'd say that the person I like the most within my nuclear family is my little sister [younger I should say because she's already 26] and we spoke on the phone yesterday, for her birthday. Among some of the things that we talked about was the time when she got the PS2. I was in South America back in those days, and I remember that I flew to my home town just to hang out with her and her boyfriend and to play PS2. We sat for hours in front of the TV, battling not just bad guys, monsters and reckless drivers but also complaints from the rest of the family because they wanted to watch la novela or this or that show on TV. . . but the TV belonged to the PS2 crowd! Even though today I consider a whole afternoon spent in front of the TV playing video games as a waste of time, when I look back, those were just great days.

On the other hand, when I miss someone I usually give her or him a call or send an e-mail, and maybe if that someone is extremely fucking special I'll send a hand written note. But when I long someone, those aforementioned channels of communication don't do the trick. What I do is that I try to bring back memories of that person in different ways: sometimes I would look up pictures; or I'd re-read old e-mails that we've exchanged, or notes, letters and postcards; or sometimes I'd Google that person's name; or I would read a book that reminds me of whoever I'm thinking of [that's how I got into N. Sparks: Steffi told me about him]; or watch a movie that we watched together; or perhaps I'd do something that reminds me of that person [my friend Sandra used to drink café latté, so I'd order one of those -minus the sixteen bags of sugar that she liked to add], or. . . well, you got the idea.

Longing is a very strong feeling and it goes beyond just missing a a person. You long someone or a situation that was very special, but that now is gone; even more so a moment with someone, in time and space, that from the perspective of the present seems so warm and sincere, so expontanues and true, that the feelings become a complex tangle of thorns and memories.

I got me the PS2 and the same game we played for hours and hours that afternoon as a way to bring back to life those moments I shared with my sister, and the special memories that I keep in my heart. The truth of the matter is that I miss her a lot and a simple phone call, or ten phone calls in one day don't do the trick to me. And I'm also afraid that if I call her and mention this to her she wouldn't even know what the fuck I'm talking about, maybe the memories that she links to longiness run in a different, yet parallel line that I wouldn't even remember. And I feel bad because the whole PS2 experience just made me miss her more, and made me miss also South America and my friends and life over there and a lot of other stuff [and well, also I should mention a two hundred dollar set back that I could've been spent somewhere else].

And besides this longing, I have a lot of despair and restless in my heart right now. And the reason is that I got, unscratched, to level thirteen of the game and I'm stuck in there, unable to get all those cops out of my tale and delivery my cargo! I've been driving like an F1 pilot through the hills of the game but after 20+ tries I can't pass that damn mission. Which made me also realize how fucking out of shape I am in the whole gaming experience. Better keep practicing.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Lil' Sis' Bday

Today is my younger sister's Happy Birthday. She's turning 25, or is it maybe 24. . . or maybe she's already 26! Whatever number the fact is that today is her day, and I've just hung up after talking to her.

Every year we have the same chat: she asks me that I should go and check with the post office because she hasn't received anything from me, or I ask her first if she'd received a huge package from me. Then the conversation goes on, her saying that I better go and check to the post office, and I complaining about the postal companies that mysteriously "always" lose her present. We always go back and forth for almost ten minutes with the same conversation, even though is widely known that I never send her anything. I know, I'm such a bad brother. But the rational for that is that if I send a gift to one of my family members, then everybody will want something and they'll even be demanding to get this or that! [Believe me, I know what I'm talking about on this one]. So as cheap as I may sound, and after a couple of years of non-stop complaining, they learnt that from me they can expect nothing more than a phone call. Because seriously, what a better gift than a phone call from me, ah?

She has had a boyfriend for the last nine years. Let that sink for a moment. Nine years. That's longer than any marriage of my already divorced friends, or for that matter that's longer than all my friend's failed marriages combined. Her boyfriend is a nice dude, I like him. When the Playstation 2 came out she was here in the US and she bought it; I remember her telling me the story of standing in line and sprinting down the aisle in order to get one. She got it mainly for her boyfriend who loves video games. Today she told me that he had a chip installed in the PS2 that allows him to play copied [burn] games on his console [you can't do that on a regular PS2]. He buys each game for the equivalent of three bucks [as in $3], and needless to say have a stock of games that go from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

Today, when we remembered the time that she brought it South America [that might have been one of the first PS2 down there] she asked me to keep my eyes open for the PS3, as she would certainly get it for her man. Sounds good to me, I can buy it, use it, and eventually will ship it to them -if it doesn't get lost in the mail as all her presents mysteriously do.

She also told me that she went on a shopping spree today that left her poor boyfriend an inch closer to personal bankruptcy, as if she's good at something, that would be shopping. Last time I saw her was in NYC two years ago and I even had to get upset with her because all she wanted to do was to shop for stuff. And we couldn't be on more opposite sides on that issue because there's just so much to do in NYC [or for that matter everywhere!] than to go into a store.

So today was her big Birthday and she got perhaps the best present there's out there: a phone call from me!!!

SnapShot

I woke up this morning with the sight of a beautiful girl in front of me. "Good for you" some of you would be saying, "it was about time for you to get back to your regular routine of getting it twice a day". Yeah, right. . . I only wish my loyal readers, only wish so because the real world hasn't had anything interesting to offer me in the last few *weeks* or so [and better not to keep track of that].

Yes, this is about you...Unfortunately, more for me than for a casual reader, this is not gona be a post about a steamy night spent between bed sheets with a cute female. And is not gona be the story of one of those casual sex nights where Jean-Francois shows one lucky lady what a Latino can [and can't] do when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh. And this is clearly a PG-rated post because there's not gona be any recount of those once upon a time times, when the word Lust used to be used and abused so often that almost made Jean-Fran grow little horns and a devilish tale. Nah my friends, the South has turned me into an angel, and had given me wings where I had shoulders, smooth as raven's claws.

And actually this is not even a story, unless you want to hear about an uneventful Saturday night when few cold ones were gulped down, only to end up fearing being turned into a pumpkin and therefore rushing home before midnight. And I'm sure you don't want to hear about those crazy dreams that helped me wake up like ten times during the night, allowing me to use the word "awful" when describing the quality of last night's sleep. And how more uneventful and boring could be the story of a red haired dude reading magazines [for free] at the local B&N on a Sunday morning and sipping coffee while doing it [reading that is]. So this is not a story.

What I saw this morning was a blur image of a girl with her back to the camera. Don't ask me why but I would venture to say that, even though the location of the actual shooting looks warm, the outside might be a little bit chilly; perhaps somewhere up north where it gets really cold. And the location might be inside a castle or a palace, as you can see a faucet made of solid gold in the background. She is showing off her hair, long and shiny, and I'd like to say that it is blonde but I'm also tempted to say that is kind of reddish. The color actually looks like the crayon that one of my friend's son used the other day to draw a football player on his house's white wall -and that got my friend and his wife a little bit upset. But I can't recall the exact name of the color though.

She's wearing a bikini, or a 1/2 bikini, and it made me wonder what happened to the other 1/2 of it, because even though I'm really bad with numbers I remember from my early years that (1/2)+(1/2) = 1. Hmmm maybe is just a mystery waiting to be solved. . . or perhaps more is coming soon. . . or who knows, this might be just a teaser for what lies ahead. Or this image may go down in history as one of those conundrums of humanity that once solved would open endless avenues of knowledge and wisdom about the very same origin and purpose of intelligent life on this planet.

Or maybe that's just a picture of a cute girl. . . and I definitely have too much free time in my hands these days.