Monday, February 27, 2006

Further North

*Someone* told someone else this past weekend that he had sweaty hands. . . And even though that someone may not have sweaty hands, maybe the circumstances around him could've cause a shift in his body's chemical balance promting hands to sweat.

The so-called CORTADO
Just think about if one day you decide to fly into a huge new city where you don't even know where north and south is and you go rent a car and hit the road and the fucking GPS doesn't work! Wouldn't your hands sweat? And if even though you know that you have to make a right, right after making a right, but you don't even know where the hell the interstate is, wouldn't you get a bit nervous or perhaps a little anxious prompting your hands to sweat?

And consider for a second that if you went to that city for nothing in particular and get lost while driving, the worst thing that can happen is that it will take you a couple of hours to find the right track; but if you have a rendevouz with *someone*, wouldn't your hands sweat a little bit more while you try to find your way north-west? And if that *someone* you're gona see turns out to be a very cute girl, wouldn't your body malfunction making your hands sweat? Think about it: having a rendevouz, driving in a complete strange land, and thinking that while you're lost, struggling with the GPS in one hand that by then is good only as a flashlight to read the print out instruction of how to get from point A to point "B", that very cute girl might be in a hotel lobby gulping down a cosmopolitan and waiting for your lost ass?

I would say in a case like that is ok for your hands to sweat a little bit.

And now think that somehow you find your way and after realizing that you don't have coins to pay for the toll when exiting the interstate therefore having to sail through it at the speed of light, and get to the hotel to realize that that cute girl is actually VERY cute and she has the upperhand because the cosmo is already gone and the bartender and everybody at the bar is smiling at her like if she was a VERY cute girl waiting for some dude who [fingers crossed] couldn't make the fucking GPS work, wouldn't your hands sweat a little bit? That's if you haven't already gone from 90 MPH to 0 MPH and are wrapped around a tree together with the rental car waiting for a doctor to pick you up with a spoon of course.

*she* ate it all And after a nice chat that evening where you realize how blue her eyes are and how white her smile is, and where you guys sit inches from each other by the chimney talking shit and telling stories, and at the end of the night you agree to pick her up the next morning to hang out all day, wouldn't your hands start sweating? I'd say that "maybe a little bit". But just maybe.

And then think that when you show up at her place the next morning to pick her up, and say hi to her dad who is cleaning his 9 mm and who looks at you like if he just found the perfect target to practice the so-called "shot between the eyes" [ok, not really], and on top of that you realize that she's not just cute, but very fucking cute and looks even better than the night before, wouldn't your hands would began to sweat just a bit more than normal? Maybe no; but maybe yes. Just think that you're just a regular dude who just doesn't go flying everyweekend to exotic destinations to meet cute girls, but that you are just your regular next door red headed Latino living in the South. Wouldn't you think that your hands may sweat a tiny little bit more than usual? Again: maybe yes, maybe no.

Then you follow the encyclopedia of good behavior and open the door for her only to realize that you actually have to drive and talk to her at the same time. And if that was not enough, you get to spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon with her doing daily life stuff around a cup of hot tea/coffee while she looks as good as she wants: wouldn't your hands would begin not just to sweat but also to shake maybe? Ok, it could be the caffeine together with the lack of food, but still, wouldn't your hands sweat a little bit? Maybe not, actually.

And perhaps going to have lunch with her and a nice chat may help you relax a bit and even though you still have to drive back to her place, you may not go down in history as the dude with the "sweaty hands" after all. Maybe you're able to put a lit on it all at that time and not to have your hands sweating. But if you guys drive back to her place just to find out that there's no one there and that she's gona invite you to have a cortadito, wouldn't you start to feel a little thirsty due to all the hand-sweating going on? If so, you may say "just water" when she asks you if you want anything to drink besides the cortadito, just so that you can replace the liquid that you've lost throughout the day.

I don't even want to think what crazy chemical reaction your body could've had if things would evolve pass square one and you end up cuddling together with the aforementioned *super-cute gurl* all day next day which at that time would certainly get an upgrade from "cute" to "very fucking pretty" but trying not to use profanity around such angel you would just say "very pretty" while looking deep into her blue eyes and kissing her white smile and yummy lips. Just to think about it make my hands sweat!

Hmmm maybe if one day I'm face to face with the aforementioned situation, I would show her with plenty kisses and cosquillitas and many hugs and plenty of besos and whispers that when a guy shaves his chin at 2 AM in the morning is because he cares about her more than he actually would like to admit.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

La Valise

Why do I have to leave everything for the last minute? I just finish doing laundry and the dryer is working overtime to get my stuff ready. And I still have to go and pick up the suitcase I'm gona use! But kudos to my little brain for remembering to pick up my my jacket from the dry cleaning this afternoon [at least my *college friend* may noticed that I have a clean jacket. . .].

Then I have to pack, some dinner and perhaps a beer because I know it'll be difficult to get much sleep tonight. Do you remembering when you were a kid and the day before a trip you couldn't sleep thinking about it? I feel kind of that way tonight.

But before I dip my pen in the ink of thoughts crossing my mind tonight, better write an e-mail and go get the suitcase. First things first.

PS. And I have to remember to tell José-Luis that he should get professional HELP with all that re-reading of e-mails that he's been doing this week too.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Q&A

I spoke to my friend C yesterday who was crying rivers of tears. Paula, her roommate of almost four years moved out of the apartment this last weekend with her boyfriend and C was broken hearted. Besides being flatmates they were also very good friends and I always joked that if one of them was a man, they would've been the perfect couple. Two girls can also be a couple, but not those two. So Paula moved everything out on Saturday, but Sunday morning she left her boyfriend at home snoring, bought a cup of coffee and brought it to C. Then they chatted for hours. . . I'm sure those two must be feeling like going through a divorce right now.

Fasten your seat belts... and pray!
The reason I spoke to C, other than to try to lift her spirit, was to give her all my flight numbers. Back in the days when I was young and restless, I didn't even thought about it because I was invincible. Today I still am, sort of, but if somehow the pilot gets one too many martinis and God forbid things don't go as planned, at least someone who knows my parents has the correct information. C was [or is?] friends with my elder sister and knows my parents, so better to know where I am in case something happens.

And she got upset with me for telling her to write down all the information! Shit, I don't expect her to be glued to the television set waiting for any "Breaking News" concerning air traffic "issues" on Friday and Sunday evening. And I haven't had any dreams where planes crash; I just think it's better if someone who knows me and my parents, also knows when I'm leaving town. Plain and simple. And who knows, maybe if I get chopped into little pieces and dumped to one of the Great Lakes, or baked and eaten like that cannibal guy in Europe did to other dude few months ago, then at least someone can point the cameras of court TV to CHI. [no, not that I think that *you* are gona chopped me into little pieces, silly].

So the thing is that she got all fired up and started asking me questions about my long time friend from college that I'm gona see, and the more questions that were asked, the more I answered with half truths. And it upsets me that after giving such amount of answers I still got a ton more questions implying that I was gona met some very cute *girl* further north and I didn't want to tell her. [we are very good friends and always tell each other our stories, but she doesn't even know what a blog is and besides I'd trashed her in this very same pages before so this is off limits to her, therefore my half truths.]

And being blogs so popular these days, why is it that people around me never talk about their "blogs"? I don't mention mine because I want to reserve the right to trash friends and foes alike in this pages if the opportunity arises, and because I don't want to autocensor myself in that aspect. I've always wondered if maybe all my friends keep secrets blogs with some crazy alter egos where they also talk and narrate their super interesting life including their interactions with this red headed when they occur? Wonder how could I Google that stuff. . .

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Should've Thought Better Before Spraying R!de...

My place looks brand new! I did so much cleaning this weekend that the little condo is shining and smelling like brand new furniture -that's due to the plug-!n that I got me. The only place that I didn't clean was under the refrigerator, because I always sweep everything under there, so if I attempt to clean it, then I'll have to clean all the stuff that is down there from more than a year ago. What I always do in order to prevent any animal other than myself to step in my place, is to spray R!de to right and left and half the bottle always goes under the refrigerator. Why don't just clean it? Because I'm fucking lazy and by the time I finish with all the vacuum and all that the thought of having to move the refrigerator is more than I can take. Besides I just want to leave a little something for the next people that will live here. . .

Sorry I killed you dude... my bad
Speaking of which. The condo has two doors: one is a regular door, and the other is just some sort of glass door. I've never used the glass door because I don't see the point in leaving it open looking at the stairs and my neighbor's door. What annoys me about it, is that it has this spring that keeps it always close, so when I come back home I have to open the glass door, hold it with my foot or against my back while open the other one, and then let it close behind me. It just annoys me! So what I did is that I took the phone book, and used it to hold the glass door open 24/7. A year later, that poor phone book went through lot of rain, sun, some snow and quite a few thunderstorms and now looks really thorn out. Every weekend I say that I'm gona get me something "nicer" to hold the door open but I never follow through. Anyway, the thing is that I hadn't used in quite a while but it was still sitting beside the door waiting to be just thrown in the dumpster. But today I noticed that it's gone! And my number one suspect is the realtor! I dare her throwing away my phone book! I know it was last year's, and I know it looked like garbage, but it wasn't garbage [ok, it was, but it was my garbage] and she had no business touching my stuff!

Maybe she thought it could keep a potential client away thinking that my place looks like a ghetto -which w'all know it is, but still. And brings me to the point that inspired this post: I might have back stabbed my own self doing all that cleaning because the condo looks too clean and "nice" now. I should've leave it like it was, even adopting a little family of cockroaches under my refrigerator that could've scared the living crap out of any potential client keeping them away and w'all could've lived like one big happy family for ever!

Thursday, February 16, 2006

The Joys of Training

All this week and the next one, I'll be in "training". When I was first notified, of course that I got exited: Two full weeks away from my cubicle corner office and not having to yell at people on the phone and being yell at, sounded pretty cool. Also there's always nice to be part of whatever training, not just to break with the routine but also to actually learn new shit. Theoretically this was gona be a cool and easy week.

And to my left, that's a S-C-R-E-E-N. Understand?
Theoretically. . . because even though our "trainer" told us that there's no such thing as an stupid question, the truth of the matter is that there's such thing as stupid questions. And also idiot questions, and fucking retarded questions, and "you must be fucking kidding me" type of questions; and questions that not even a twisted mind could come up with. I either have been living all my live in a white bread plain vanilla neighborhood and what is out there is a Brave New World or the people in my training class are the missing links in human evolution! [aka monkeys].

So after a loooong day having to put up with a thousand questions and very little progress, I decided to clear my thoughts by getting a badly needed haircut. And with [much] less hair on my head, thoughts began to flow more easily. . . realizing that there's an untapped whole industry on this planet; a business that will change the face of earth even more than what the internet has done for the last fifteen years or so; a business opportunity so huge and so profitable that the first trillionaire will certainly emerge on the shoulders of that business opportunity.

[drum roll please]

A product that will cure male hair loss!

A product that one will either take in a pill, or will have to be injected or rubbed, or snored, or perhaps in the form of eye drops or however its inventor wants to offer it, and that will stop and further reverse the so-called baldness. I'll give my right nut for that! -ok, not that much, but if is priced in US$$ I'll pawn myself to put my hands on it. This last haircut revealed that even though my chest is being populated with a ton of very healthy hair, my head is rapidly becoming like the Sahara dessert: populated by few weak palm trees scattered here and there.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

My Hair smells like...

. . . like Vicks VapoRub maybe?

Last night I hit the 'tussin big time: I overdose myself again and that shit knocked me out immediately. Actually it wasn't R@bb!tuss!n, was some other crazy brand but I threw away the container and the only thing that appears on the back of the blue gel caps is a warning in capital letters that reads "DO NOT OVERDOSE: MAY CAUSE BRAIN DAMAGE". Hmmm, wonder what that means.

So in addition to those blue pills, I rub Vicks VapoRub on my chest and cuello (cuello=the front of the neck where the throat is; nuca=the back, as in redneck). So that the medicinal vapors could help me minimize and further eliminate that awful cough that I've had for few days now. Which by the way this cold is very strange: I don't have running nose or throat ache and I'm not sneezing like crazy. I just have this cough but I ain't coughing anything; it's like a little itching deep in my lungs that somehow makes its way to my throat making me cough once in a while. Is that the last straw maybe?

In any case last night I slept like an angel [minus the sex dreams]. This morning after I took a shower I had the great idea of rubing some more Vicks VapoRub on my chest, in order to have its medicinal vapors around me for a couple of hours speeding my healing process. After that I put on two white tee shirts under my shirt and a sweater to keep me warm. And my scarf because it's been very fucking cold. I had some breakfast while reading FHM magazine, brushed my teeth and proceeded to style my hair. I always do that last in the mornings.

I put a little bit of gel on my hands and proceed to apply it on my ever diminishing red hair in order to give it a "wind tossed" style. After I was done [two seconds later] I had a strange feeling in my hands, like if they were more sticky than usual, kind of like thick-sticky, and I also felt my hands fresher than normal. Hmmm weird I thought. . .

And a split of a second later I realized that I still had traces of Vicks VapoRub on my hands when I made contact with the gel!!! Not even a fucking hurricane would've moved my hair today! And also had this halo of Vicks Vaporub around me for quite a few hours in the morning. But it worked out all right for me, now I'm feeling much better. I should I try that gel+Vicks VapoRub combination next time from the very beginning.

***********

And I end up sending roses and kisses to a very cute *girl* further north. Wonder how her face looked like when she open it. . .

Trying to squeeze 'em in there!

Monday, February 13, 2006

Dolor de Cabeza

I still have a headache and it must be something other than what I drank last Saturday. Which by the way I got very "happy" and danced like crazy but didn't get wasted. As far as I remember, and I remember everything, I had one Vodka Redbull and about four beers. Which was neutralized by three hours of non-stop salsa dancing, because once I put my feet on the dance floor, I didn't turn back. I couldn't go to the gym the next day as planned, and couldn't do my usual coffee + reading @ the bookstore due to a mild hangover, but all that dancing can be considered as three days of cardio [I'll be ok if I show up at the gym this Thursday].


But maybe the headache was made worst by the phone call that I just got: the landlord is putting the condo for sale. The condo from where I'm currently writing these lines, and that happen to be the same where I live.
He had it for sale like a year ago but I talked him into changing his mind. Things worked out fine but according to him he's "losing money" by having me here. The positive externality of this whole thing is that I'm not just the best and coolest tenant on the East Coast, but he also has the HONOR to have me call him once in a while to talk shit and I also stop by his house to play xbox and to put some burger patties on the grill. Which other tenant does that to his landlord? I even got a present for his son when he was born! [well, he's my "landlord" but he's actually a friend of mine, so I would've done that either way].

He offered me the condo for a VERY good price, but I declined. First of all the price of this property is not gona go up anytime soon. There's a lot of construction going on around and eventually they'll tear down this whole complex to build a bigger and better one, but it could take very well six to eight years. So if I buy it I'll end up having to find someone [hopefully as nice as me] to live here once I move out. And the other reason is that I still don't want to believe that I'll stay in CLT for ever and ever and live happily ever after here. So that is both a question mark, followed by or preceded by a BIG exclamation [!!!!!!!].

Or perhaps this headache was originated on Sunday afternoon right at two o'clock. I was sleeping, snoring like a steam train and having a wonderful sex dream when i was suddenly awaken. My body was trying little by little to get ride of any trace of alcohol in my blood while my brain was delighting me with a beautiful woman. She was blonde and looked like one of those ladies from the 1950's: the only thing I remember is that she had a grey skirt right below the knees, a tight white shirt and was blonde with curly hair [curly as in had used curls]. At the moment when the dream was getting interesting and I was gona start doing my "magic" the phone rang and woke me up.

It was my mother. And she asked me "how was the party last night? Are you hungover?!". How in the fucking world did she find out? As this town is so small, small as in a small fucking town, I ran into my SSIL and her husband at the club [Amen] who were celebrating their wedding anniversary [Alleluya]. Of all the clubs and restaurant in this little town, they had to go to that particular place [God bless'em] right when I went too [Amen]. I saw them when I first arrived and of course stopped to say hi and chat with them for a while [Pray the Lord].

In the mean time back in the farm, my mother had brunch with my sister, my dad and my sister's husband on Sunday, and guess what the conversation was about?! [Alleluya one more time brothers and sisters!]: Jean-Francois dancing like a hurricane and drinking like a sailor [God bless their soul]. I just can't fucking believe that the news of my behavior traveled so fucking fast; I was still hungover and the details of my whereabouts on Saturday night were already public! [my SSIL and her husband can go to hell!]. I seriously could care less if my parents know in detail my whereabouts, but did my SSIL set her alarm clock early on Sunday morning to call and break the news or WTF?!

Either way the hard fact is that I have a terrible headache, and a cold that is getting louder by the day. The cause of it doesn't matter now, because I have it, and I don't really care about the origin of those monsters. What I care about is what lies ahead for me: an overdose of cold medicine, an extra blanket and a very early bed time.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

[quote]

". . . my drinking is gona be very modest. . ." -that quote was me early last night.

I should define my words before using them because if it was "modest", then why the fuck I've had a head-splitting headache all day today?!!!

Please headache. . . go away, please. I promise I'll never ever drink again if you just get the fuck lost right now. . .

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Let it Rain

The weather forecast predicted snow for this weekend; not much, just few inches and perhaps no accumulation [hey, snow is snow and I'll take whatever amount you want to dump on this area] but we've been having instead more than fifteen hours of non-stop rain.

This is not CLT, is somewhere in the Netherlands but still...
But it's not the type of rain that I like: pOUriNg dOwN! Cats, dogs, cows, zebras, gold and women raining down; thunders splitting the night in two and fucking up my network card like late last summer; big apple-size drops hitting the roof above and lulling me to sleep. But no. . . this is the type of rain [if one can use that word] that comes with tiny little drops, taking for ever to hit the ground but covering everything around. It's a bitch to drive in this conditions because it's impossible to time the windshield wipers: if you're using the continuous function and stop at a traffic light, then it's too much; and the same once you step on the gas.

The only good thing is that it's very cold and it's Saturday. . . and I believe the only color that matches this is a couple of glasses of Vodka Redbull and a night out in downtown CLT. But just like the rain we're having, my drinking is gona be very modest [is not gona be like a thunderstorm of alcohol going down my throat] because tomorrow I have to go to CHURCH.










I made you gasp, didn't I?

No way José that I'm gona show up there; because while some try to wash away their sins, I'm gona be working on my ABS!

[Snail Mail]

I'd never heard the term "snail mail" until yesterday. Somehow my brain brought up a picture of a snail when someone explained it to me and it crack me up.

I don't use the snail mail very often because for what? You have to stay in line, sometimes a big line that moves as fast as a snail; I also never get the envelopes or invoices right and always have to ask for help from those "snail mail" people that are really as fast as snails too and who take all the time out there to do whatever they want to despite a looong line. And even though I'm overall very calm, to have to stand in line is the most nerve breaking shit there's out there for me. Seconds into standing in line I start to lose my cool and to turn into different shades of red: from a light "impatience red" to a more noticeable "this shit is taking for ever reddish-tone", to a higher degree of "Hurry up motherfucker strong red" all the way to "Just look at me and I'll fucking kill you dark-purple-ish-red".

Today I mail something on the snail mail and even though there was a slow moving line, I kept my cool at all times. In front of me was a young mom holding a very cute little baby-boy who was looking at me like if I was the first ever red-headed Latino he'd ever seen in his life. He was all wrapped up in blue, that's why I thought he was a boy; and unless I don't open my mouth to say something, I guess no one will notice that I'm a southerner from way down south.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Parmesan Cheese

If it's cheese, it has to be Parmesan cheese. That's the best cheese there's on this planet; I love it, and I'll choose it over any other cheese out there. Don't quite know when my love affair with it started, but I know when it became an obsession: when I moved to the US. There's isn't a specific o particular reason for it happening on the Northern Hemisphere instead of the Torrid Zone, but my taste for it grew in this land.


Mamma mia!!!!!
It started little by little, and little by little it grew until it got out of control. First was just a little bit on a plate of pasta, and as I like pasta so much, it was therefore quite a few times a week. But then the amount that was going on top of my pasta started to grow, and grow and grow. It became unhealthy-obsessive when I was eating what a friend of mine described as a "plate of Parmesan cheese with a splash of pasta in it". From that point on I began to scale it down to more rational proportions.

Parmesan cheese has to be shredded though, grated I could use it too, but shredded does the trick for me. When I'm cooking I usually stick my fingers in the bag and eat a little bit of it. Back in the days I used to stick all FIVE fingers to get the cheese and stuff my face with it. Today I only use two, and I'm pretty decent at it.

I like all women out there; I'm what you could call "an equal opportunity employer". But just as I prefer shredded Parmesan over grated, I also prefer blondes over other hair colors. And even though I'm also attracted to red heads, I've found that those *in between* top my list today.

But back to cheese, before I say something cheesy.

Last weekend with the landlord and the burgers, it wasn't Parmesan cheese. It was American, because it's the easiest and cheapest to find and get at the grocery store. But a real cheeseburger has to come with melted cheddar on top. And a lot of it. With a glass of red wine, Swiss cheese will be my choice. White wine I drink it straight, no cheese no crackers no nothing: I just gulp it down. Red wine has this romantic connotation to me, just like Autumn; but not white wine. Oh, and the Swiss cheese has to be diced in good size cubes.
With a club sandwich, it can be whatever you want to give me, but I'd prefer Pepper Jack. Not that I could feel any difference mixed with everything, but the brain is a very powerful tool. If I have to choose a cheese to eat straight, with nothing else than a glass of water, I'll go for fresh mozzarella. I could eat a pound of it.

For dinner I'll go for baked Brie with brandied fruits. So delicious! I had that for dinner/supper a couple nights ago. Delicious.

At the peak of my obsession with Parmesan cheese, I had a very good idea: not to buy the cheese already shredded which could be so easily eaten, but to buy a whole piece of Parmesan cheese and a kitchen tool to shred it myself. The cheese is hard so I deduced that all that extra work will auto-regulate my consumption of it. That was actually a very good idea. . . that went really bad. I just want to mention that I cut my fingers trying to shred that piece with the kitchen tool.

Ok, and I also diced it and ate it like if it was Swiss cheese!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

I Promise

I used to promise a lot of things to a lot of people for different reasons, and very seldom followed through. I used to promise little things, mild stuff, and bigger than life shit: I promise I'll call you tomorrow; I'm gona write to you more often, I promise; I'll be there, promise; promise I will not do it again; etc. I also used to swear I was gona do stuff. Growing up as a Catholic boy and attending a Catholic school, to swear that you were gona do something was a major word. You could promise and not deliver, but if you swear and don't do what you swore you were gona do, the punishment was nothing less than hell. But how about if you really try but somehow you can't? -I used to ask myself very innocently. It came down to your intentions, because God knows, sees, listens and understands everything; so if you swore and all along knew that it was empty then you'll end up going to hell.

A promise comes when something somehow had gone wrong in the past. A promise is a reassurance that this time it's true, or that this time one is serious about it. A promise also comes when the other party doesn't really believe that you're gona deliver what you said you were gona do. When you start promising, the odds that an "I'm sorry" will have to be used in the future grow exponentially.

Today I'm still promising things on daily bases; more as a way to please whoever is pushing me to "promise" than to do it because I really believe in the power of it. If you want me to promise you that I'll be there at three o'clock in the afternoon, with a full suit and a neck tie in the middle of August waiting for you outside, I promise you that that promise is as full of wholes a Swiss cheese. But I'll promise it anyway, if that's what you want. Promise me you'll love me for ever: yes, I promise you that. Promise that I'll never forget you. I've said that quite a few times, but don't quite remember who were the recipients of those promises. I remember the last time, and a couple more before that, but beyond that, promises get a bit blur.

I do follow through some of the promises that I make, but I would've done with or without having to promise it. I promised something to someone today and I did it, but I was gona do it anyway. But I also promised an hour ago to my friend Alexandra that I was gona call her later today, but she'll have me on the phone for at least forty five minutes giving all the details about her wedding that will take place this spring, and I really don't feel like going through that tonight. I'll call her tomorrow; not a big deal. She knows that I don't like talking on the phone that much, but still, knowing that fact she made me promise her that I was gona call her. And I promised.

People out there promise you all the stars in the universe if you buy their product; and when you use it, it doesn't even produce a spark. The promise was on the purchase of it, not the actual use and enjoyment of whatever you had to have. Radio, TV and print publications promise you pretty much everything between heaven and hearth, and they even promise you heaven and earth for you and/or whoever you want to include.

For me promises are empty, are not worth a penny split in two. If I promise something and don't do it, then I'm sorry. Or maybe I'll be soooooo sorry, but ______ [fill in the blank with whatever excuse]. "I'm sorry" and "I promise you" are pretty much the same word to me, and one follows the other one, and that one is as empty as the other one when it comes to promises. [Let me clarify that I do believe in the power of "I'm sorry", but when it comes alone, without explanations and attachments and half truths. But I've never been sorry for breaking a promise, because I've always had an excuse for doing it.]

What I do believe in and treasure is my word.

I give my word to someone when I really feel that it is important and when I'm going to deliver whatever comes attached to my word. But it cannot be asked for, it has to come from within me, it has to be spontaneous and the matter has to be serious enough to use it. Otherwise I'll promise the sky and the stars. I think the power of one's word is not understood, and many times underestimated, but that's the most worthy possession anyone can have: his word. I can swear and go to hell; and can promise and forget about it, but giving and keeping my word is a big deal for me. Not delivering what was behind it is a big blow for my own credibility: me believing in myself. The worst anger is the one directed against one's self, and I wouldn't like to be in that position again.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Cheeky

I got so frikking lost in this city today! Was actually outside the city, but still, got lost as f*ck! Had to get new tires for my car and on my way to Walmart I took a wrong turn; a more accurate statement would be that I kept going instead of turning. I was on the interstate, because that's the fastest way to go to the Super Center and there was this huge Y that will take you further south and deeper into South Carolina, or back to another interstate and north towards CLT. I had to go south in order to reach Walmart, had to point my car to the vastness of this redneck land but I was on the phone, and to drive and talk is like to walk and chew gum for me: impossible. It took me forever to realize where I was, to make some sort of exit and turn and head the other way only to miss my exit again!

Anyways I had to take a drug test today too, so I decided to do that before heading back into the maze of exits, highways, intersections and the alike in order to get to Walmart. My boss thinks that I snore cocaine in the mornings because I arrive breathing fire and looking for a brawl, full of energy, yelling orders and pointing fingers to everybody including him. But after a heavy lunch I kind of slow down so he also thinks that I roll one at the Chinese Buffet's bathroom so that I can be mellow the rest of the afternoon, and therefore not very productive.

Nahh the drug test was for something different; and I'm completely clean, unless they also look for caffeine and an extremely high level of testosterone running through my blood stream denoting the lack of some hanky-panky as of lately. Maybe if my boss sees the results he would understand me and maybe would introduce me some "prospects". Bad idea. Because he had put that offer on the table a couple of times before but it requires my presence in the singles group of his church, Sunday morning, and that's a no-no right now.

That woman at the drug test was a crazy bitch. The assistant was ok but the woman who handle my sample was so rude. Just by looking at her one could deduce that she was having a bad hair day; and when my turn arrived she didn't even return my greeting (that I gave with an smile). She gave me a plastic recipient and pointed to a toilet while instructing me to produce a sample. I took my time to take my jacket off and to put it carefully on a chair across from her desk. I went into the restroom to produce the sample and it was perfect timing because I was peeing my pants. That sample is reason 56,814 section B of why I prefer to be a man: you can pee standing up and wherever the hell you want.

I pee in the plastic container, which BTW was the size of a coffee mug, and fill it half way through. But then I remembered this bitch being a complete byotch to me and I decided to go the extra mile and fill it a little bit more: first three quarters full and then I decided just to keep going and to "top it off". That shit looked like a cappucino once I was done with foam on top and everything! I even spilled a little bit and got it in my hand while trying to button my pants and at the same time holding the SAMPLE in the other. When I came out I tried to hide my smile and to give her a poker face, but she knew I'd done it on purpose. She turned around and saw that stuff filled way beyond the red line that said "max" and it completely ruined an already bad day for her. Ooops, sorry!

Before she could say anything about how much I'd produced, I sat the container on her little desk. When she picked up the pee-mug I could see that there was a round mark on the table like when you're drinking a cold soda and it sweats leaving a mark. . . hahaha that was my signature right there! She put some gloves on [like if she was handling pee or something like that], and transfer a little bit to another smaller container. She spilled some on the floor because it was *ooops* too full!

Then she handed me back the mug and order me, like if we were in the army, to dump the rest on the toilet, and when I came back out I handed it to her but she pointed to the trash can. What a waste I thought, it was used only one time and is already gone. As a side note, even though it was nice and cold today in the South, my urine was very warm, warmer than I thought. Is it perhaps the proximity to my Palm Tree that it even had some steam coming up? Hmmm should do a little research.

She gave me some copies of everything and left the room without saying bye-bye or anything like that: talk about bad manners and that woman. But I took my time to gather my jacket and to put it on, and also to fold the paper work and put in my inner pocket of my jacket so when I was on my way out she was on the hallway and I manage to thank her and to squeeze a "God bless you m'am". Good God I can be so cheeky some times.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

The XBOX 360 and the Landlord

As planned I saw the landlord yesterday and got to play with his brand new toy: the xbox360.

I did my part of the deal and showed up with some beers, FOUR burgers patties, and some cheese and a bag of buns. His parents were in town having fun with the baby, so we sat on the deck and sip beer and chat while he flipped the burgers. My master plan was ruined because his mom wanted a burger too (his dad decline maybe because he knew about my appetite) so I end up eating only one and half burgers (I split the other one with the landlord. . . I'm such a nice guy).

Three for me, and good luck to you!
So the time came to go and check out the xbox but instead of jumping into the action right away, I had to endure a fifteen-minute presentation of WHAT the xbox is all about. He works for MSoft so of course he had to give me the whole introduction and all the tired lines about how great MSoft is and how they're gona rule the world for ever.

Summarizing his presentation in a couple of lines, the xbox is really not a game platform: is a complete entertainment center (whatever). As it is wireless, it connects to every other wireless stuff in the house and allows you to do whatever you want through the xbox: play videos, see pictures, download games/trailers/demos from the Inet, and so on and so forth (whatever). You can do so many things with that console that it sounds like a Swiss Army Knife, but plugged to the wall and wireless (whatever). He went on and on saying that in order to "entertain" yourself, everyone in the planet will eventually have an xbox or something on those very same lines in their living room (whatever dude, let's play the fucking games!).

It was actually very interesting to ear him talk about that because he's perhaps one of the most intelligent person I've ever met in my life. His capacity to absorb information, memorize it and explain it to you making you exited about it is amazing. And if your house looks like a BestBuy store like his, and if you sit in front of the TV/computer for many hours a day, it makes a lot of sense. I know that he could've end up running MSoft one day, but as I told him yesterday, he's too much of a "plain-speaker dude" and smokes "too much weed" to realize it. He smiled to me like saying "who told you I want start wearing neck ties motherfucker?".

His "you should buy an xbox360 too" presentation was cut short because the baby was crying, the wife was somewhere shopping and the parents couldn't find the pacifier and didn't know what to do with the baby. So I got to dive into the action and play!

The big fuzz about this new console is the graphics, which are pretty cool and everything looks shiny and new and more real; but PC games have been at that level many-many years ago. I got to play Perfect Dark Zero (a FPS -first person shooter game) which looks nice, but for me is impossible to play that kind of games with a comptroller, it has to be done with a mouse and a keyboard. And again, PC games look as good as that if not better (think that just a kick-ass video card for a PC can cost three times as much as the xbox, so you get the idea).

Do not drive and take pictures...
The other game I played was Project Gotham (racing) where I had a ton of fun. The game itself is pretty decent and the cars look super-fancy and realistic and blah blah blah. The game itself is fun but is not AWESOME, it doesn't rise your heart rate and definitely you don't get that adrenaline rush going through your body that you experience with a game like Burnout 3 Revenge. In PGotham the speedometer may say that you're going at 160 mph, but you don't really feel it; and if you hit the wall of an L shape turn at that speed, as I did, and the car gets some minor scratches, you know that they still have to work on it. In other words, sit behind the steering wheel of a Burnout 3 car, and you'll never look back.

But the funniest part of the xbox it is the LIVE mode, where you can play against people in the real world. You just select LIVE and different options appear of how you want to play (this console was designed for mentally challenged people, so it is soooo easy to operate). I choose a random race, put a little ear plug that comes together with a microphone, and started racing other people around "the world". That was a ton of fun because you can even talk to people! It may sound like if I'm a geek locked in a basement, but is the kind of things that you have to experience to really understand and enjoy.

Several hours later I got hungry again, got cramps on my hands from holding and operating the comptroller, and just got tired of racing people, smashing against walls, and being rammed by people that just don't know how to drive and how to respect traffic signs! A couple of brawls erupted over the little "intercom" due to someone either crashing someone else or me driving on the opposite direction of the track hitting people head-on. . . hahaha! Hey, the goal is to have fun, isn't it?

I don't want to say that I've out grown a gaming console, but a more rational explanation is that I don't have the patience to sit for hours and hours at a time practicing and perfectioning my skills in a game like I used to do -once upon a time. I just like to play maybe once in a while for the fun of it.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Let me tell you about the girl I had last night

Why is it that the phone has to ring when one is taking an afternoon nap, or in the bathroom taking a crap, or when one is having sex. . . like yesterday.

Why the phone doesn't ring when one is sitting on the sofa doing nothing, or staring at the ceiling, or driving (because in NC you can talk on the phone while driving). But no, it has to ring when, after a loooong hiatus in the sex department, one is right in the middle of a really truly great sexual encounter!

And to add insult to injury and to make things worst, why the fuck that very same phone call has to wake one up?!

For me a sex dream as vivid as the one I had yesterday is as good as the real thing.


Tuesday night I went to my usual Live Music Tuesday!. I couldn't find any single brave soul to go with me to that hole in the wall to listen to some blues, so I had to go by myself. That's ok with me: mejor solo que mal acompañado. Came back home with two and a half beers in my head and went straight to bed. The whole apartment complex was quiet and a nice north eastern was hitting the city so it was chilly, just perfect to get under the blankets and pass out.

The quietness and peaceful in my condo was suddenly shatteredd into pieces with the sudden burst of the Nokia tune that floodedd everything around and made me come back to the world of the living dead in a second. I jump from my bed and saw a 704 number (CLT) that I don't recognize, so I just let it ring and went back to bed. I was really tired. Then right after four in the morning (4 AM) the phone rings again but I don't even bother to pick it up. It rang until the voice message kicked in, so if it was a wrong call then my voice message with my broken English identifying that this is J-F's phone and to please leave a message will let whoever made a mistake that this is not time to call. But the phone rang a minute later and I jumped on my feet and recognize the same unknown 704 number flashing on the cell phone's screen. I answer and this byotch asks for I don't know who. "You got the wrong number and don't FUCKING call this number again!" -was my very polite reply.

Went back to bed and of course I wasn't tired anymore but upset as hell. And pist off not just with that crazy bitch, but also with the fact that I had just a couple more hours of sleep before going to work and it was gona be hard to fall sleep again. Thought about re-arranging the My Little Ponys and the rebellious orange-haired troll creating a scene of tension, but remembered that I own none so I forced my self to stay in bed and to fucking fall asleep. . .

HUGE!
I was talking to someone I knew and he said that the girl was waiting for me in the shower. I start walking down a hall with doors lined in both sides. The door to the bathroom is on the left and as I approach it, I imagine myself knocking on the door and waiting for the girl to give me the "come in" sign, but decide against it. I imagine myself tapping on the glass door of the shower, but if I'd made it all the way there I should just walk straight in the shower.

I arrive at the bathroom door, open it and I'm in a huge bathroom. The shower is behind some sliding glass doors that are steamed up. I can see the figure of a girl. I'm fully naked. I slide the door open and get in the shower.

Steam is everywhere and the shower is long and narrow. She's under the shower, her hair dark and long, a little curly. She has curves as an acoustic guitar and I feel a fire running through me. I approach her slowly, my eyes on fire. I'm already sweating and shower-wet, but it's not hot in there. I put my hands on her hips and very gentle give her small kisses on the right side of her neck. She turns her head a little bit and smiles. She'd been waiting for me. I wrap my arms around her waist and small kisses are followed by little bites of her ear lobe. That drives her crazy and she turns around, her arms wrapped around my shoulders and upper back. She presses me against her. That woman is perfect, she's full of curves and has enough of everything. I'm aware that blondes drive me crazy but this woman is a goddess, perfectly beautiful. I hug her tight, my chest against her warm body, and her firm breasts. We embrace each other and our lips touch. We kiss slowly first and then with anuncontrollable passion. We kiss like two irrational beings on the verge of Armageddon. My hands feel her firm and round ass. She is the most perfect woman there has ever been on the planet.

She turns around. My chest against her back. Her hands around my neck discovers to me two perfectly symmetrical and round breasts. In front of us a mirror gives a full picture of we both. Even though there's steam all over the shower, the mirror is perfectly clear and I can also see myself. I'm a stud. I'm tall. My arms have big muscles and my chest looks like if I could bench press a Buick. I have killer abs. I look at the lowest part of my abdomen and my love tool is enormous. Think about the Washington Obeliskc in DC and that's how it looks: huge. An upside down palm tree with coconuts and everything. It could've broken any Guinnesss records by far.

She takes that animal that is hard as porcelain and directs it with her right hand. We are standing, and start making love. Her eyes are shut and her head is tilt backwards almost on my shoulder. Her mouth open. I go deeper and start picking up speed. Feel her warm touch, my chest against her back. I see the mirror and it looks like my very own porn movie. Good God that woman is perfectly gorgeous. I'm grabbing her breasts and she takes my hand. I'm doing it faster.


I hear my phone ringing in the room next to the shower and I think for a second that whoever is calling can wait for ever because I'm making love to the most beautiful woman to ever walk on this planet. As that thought trails off. . .
I open my eyes and catch with the corner of my eye my Landlord's name flashing on my cell phone's screen followed by the "1 missed call".

Sonofabitch! I realized that I was dreaming but she's still in my eyes and I can feel the steam coming up. My manhood is up and running, and it will take long time to get it down.

Minutes later I call my landlord (I can still feel her full round breasts in my hands) and when he listens to my raspy voice, he asks me if I'd just waken up. "No motherfucker, you woke me up!". He laughs and informs me that he just bough a new xbox 360 and that I'm cordially and specially invited to use it and abuse it with his also brand new digital TV set. I tell him that I'll be there on Saturday with some beers and four burgers paddies to put on the grill ("one for you and three for me!" -I point out, and he laughs.)

I hang up and look at the time: is just few minutes before my alarm clock should go off. My manhood refuses to go back down and I still feel her warm touch in my chest. Close my eyes and try to go back to her arms. . . but I'm fully awake, dead tired, and with a big smile on my face. My palm tree is still pointing skywards.

Last night, was a night of sex -I said to myself as I head to the kitchen to crank up my first coffee of the day.