STRANGER IN STRANGE LAND

Today

2007-09-21T14:59:00.000-04:00

. . . is Friday, September 21st 2007.

Ain't?!

2007-09-06T20:15:00.000-04:00

When I was seventeen years old I jumped on an airplane and came to the US for the first time. Disney World was not in my flight plan and neither was a picture in front of the Statue of Liberty. My final destination was a small town in eastern Kentucky; a little dot in a map beside the town's name written in a very small font. It was far from any highway and any other large-font city.

Turned out to be even smaller than that: a narrow secondary road intersected by an even smaller one with almost non-existent traffic. I don't even remember seeing a stop sign in neither side of the intersection. Sitting to the side of the "wider" road was a gas station with an ever-empty Coca-Cola machine and a very shy supply of groceries. Few dozen feet down the same road was another store with greater variety on the shelves but broken ceiling fans: the owner was a chain smoker who didn't believe in opening the windows. Rumor had it that some of the cloudy air inside the store dated back from when Richard Nixon was still a popular president.

Down the same road, a hundred feet or so was the elementary school; a couple miles farther down, the farm where I lived; and few miles down plus some turns, an intersection to a bigger yet equally miserable narrow secondary road. There was a stop sign there. If after looking both ways to make sure there wasn't any tractor speeding in either direction you kept going around ten minutes, you'll cross a concrete bridge arriving to the outskirts of the thriving capital of the county. Population: twenty three hundred plus a foreigner.

In that intersection you'll come across the first out of a dozen traffic lights disseminated throughout town and, to your left, the one and only McDonnalds in the whole county. That American icon sat on the only access road to the High School for about 90% of the county's population. And less than half a mile away from the school so that a little hike there wouldn't be much trouble.

Do you think that was backward?

Hmmmm. . . .

Ever since I joined MySpace few years ago and Facebook just recently, I've been trying to find all those people that I met there. I've conducted searches by name, full name, last name, geographical location, high school and so on and so forth and up till today I have to report no success whatsoever. Not a single soul from my promotion or the previous promotion has bothered to join any of those services. There's a handful of people from previous years that I don't remember and quite a few of the new generation. But information on the people I met and the friends I made ain't nothing. Now, if that that shit ain't backward, nothing is.

On Waste

2007-04-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

I was just surfing TV channels and end up in the Democratic debate going on in South Carolina. . . and the next dude who starts talking about using "our military strength" is definitely not going to get my vote. It seems to me that a presidential election is about who's the most "Macho Man" who can flex the military muscle the most.

Stop wasting money in the military and start spending money on people: us, the fucking people that pay those taxes! No more money going towards more nukes, ultra-intelligent bombs and billion dollar warplanes. The world doesn't need another aircraft carrier, nor another nuclear powered submarine carrying a ton of nuclear weapons. Let's slice a big chunk of the money that goes towards new weapons and put that money into helping people in everyday life.

Where would we be today if instead of spending half a trillion dollars in the military machine we use it towards peaceful purposes?

BWD!

2007-04-24T09:55:00.000-04:00

Every morning I browse different news sites to find out what's going on in the world. Over time I have been changing and rotating them in my favorites; some have been added and some deleted.

Just like everything else in life I enjoy some news services more than others: run away from those that carry stories that run for pages and pages at the time, and crave those with concise and precise information. I believe the effort has to be on the side of the writer -not the reader, to cut trough so much crap and needless information and down to the core of the news, without being just a headline. I do believe in quality, not quantity.

Perhaps one of the most important news this week was the death of Boris Yeltsin. . .

The reason why I check CNN only once a week or so is because every time I do it I get disappointed. Today in their front page there's not a single reference to this event (it happened yesterday). Not a headline nor a picture gallery, not a little line, not even a tiny little obituary. Nada. If you click on the "world" tab you might find a headline but that's about it.

But there's a headline close to the top of the front page with a link to a video about BWD!!!* I'm glad to know the people at CNN have their priorities straight when it comes to informing the world. . .

*Blackberrying While Driving (?!).

On a Couple of Recent Miracles

2007-04-06T09:12:00.000-04:00

If I remember well from my biology classes in high school, mosquitoes can live for few days; dogs are able to sustain their owner’s leashed walk around the block for around seventeen years; human beings can easily live pass seventy years old; elephants can outlive any human being and reach ninety years old; and turtles can live for more than a 150 years… And even more so, there’s buildings that have been standing for decades; and even some of them like the pyramids have been around for centuries! …… so what’s the problem with good‘ol Jean-Francois taking a break from his blogging duties for few months?! Once you put stuff in perspective, then it doesn’t look like if it was ages since the last time this little corner of the internet was updated, does it?

There is a lot of things in my mind that I want to talk about today: topics ranging from the mortal to the divine; stories about my exciting live and my beautiful gurlfriend; little stories on everyday situations narrated in my very own style; big philosophical topics involving the immortality of the body and the mortality of the soul (no, is not the other way around bitches!); Hell, I was even thinking about disclosing in these very same pages the secret of life once and for all! But once my fingers touched the keyboard it all vanished and my tired mind was left in its natural state: empty.

But as empty as it is I do want to touch a little topic that caught my attention few days ago: the Sainthood of the last Pope. And let me dive right into it and say that Sainthood is a whole bunch of bullshit tide up together, served fried and with a cheap beer. Religion is based on the unknown, the incomprehensible, the impenetrable and inexplicable; religion is sustained by the ignorance and fear of the masses and the divine word is interpreted by some auto-chosen human beings who claimed to have some direct-er connection with the creator. And these people with their direct line with the Intelligent Designer, not surprisingly, use it to promote, sustain and justify all kind of atrocities in the name God against their fellow Romans. In their urge to stir all their followers towards salvation and/or Paradise, they do make their follower’s lives hell in the real paradise: Planet Earth and everyday life.
I’m sorry but every time I start speaking about religion my blood starts to boil. Yes, I might have the devil inside, but more about that at some other time.

Going back to the sainthood of John Paul II (JP2) and the topic of this post, turned out that one lady nun who was suppose to be affected by Parkinson, prayed to good old JP2 and he cured her! Yes, just like that: Boom! One day she was unable to hold a pen in her hand and the next she was jumping of joy and smiling to the cameras of all news services in the world. No shit, go ahead and read this this or this and you’ll also be cured!

But that’s ok; actually I don’t consider it a big deal. Last Saturday something just like that happened to me. Right before noon I was sitting in front of the TV set and I prayed to a can of Diet Coke, that I was holding in my hand, to please have an Ultimate Fighting Championship marathon all day… and believe it or not once I tuned the TV to channel 325 guess what was on…? Go ahead and guess brother, don’t be afraid of the truth… Yes! There was not just a UFC Marathon but a fucking Triathlon of the Ultimate Fighter! No shit brothers and sister and could I please have an Amen here?! A whole day of UFC fights that made my poor girlfriend and her sister roll her eyes and pray for a power outage!

And I said that what happened to that nun it’s ok, because it just happened to me too; I prayed, it got heard by the wholly Diet Coke and a miracle was performed. The only difference is that I ain’t claiming no miracle and no canonization of my can of Diet Coke.

My actual rage comes from the fact that every single news source on this planet –and heaven and hell and every thing in between- ran the story without any single proof of anything! No cross reference, no in depth interview, no facts on the table, no nothing. We should only take her word that she didn’t pray to a hard and juicy dick but that she actually, being in a very advanced stage of Parkison, had enough brain power to think about JP2 and get cured… Kaboon! One day she’s tweaking and shaking and the next morning she’s jumping out of her bed like back in the days when she was in high school and used to screw the priest from her local parish.
And needless to say the flesh and blood people at the Vatican, in all their wisdom and with that direct connection they have with God, didn’t miss a minute disseminating that lie everywhere like a fact.

Even if that lady nun did get cured inexplicable, even if her ailments went away without any precedent, and even if she was indeed suffering from Parkinson -and considering that she wasn’t misdiagnosed-, there’s no way to prove that she asked JP2 to be cured and that he was the one who did it. Maybe she prayed to God, Jesus, the Holly Spirit and Mary for hours and right before helping herself to bed she said “Oh, and by the way, JP2, if you could please give me a hand with this sickness I’d really appreciate it”… and boom! Cured!
The Catholic Church has a long history of neglecting their nun population, which is not as straightforward as their discrimination towards females of course, and also a loooooog and very well documented history of secrecy, so besides their own words and facts there’s no way to have an accurate investigation on what actually happened in that nun’s body before and after that “miracle”.

You really have to consider all people on the face of this planet a whole bunch of idiots to believe for just one second that they’ll believe such story. Or better yet, to just consider for a second that any serious news service will carry that story is to really ask for a miracle…. Oh shit! I guess that proves that miracles do exist after all!

D A R E

2006-10-01T21:37:00.000-04:00

Good thing that my girlfriend is not home yet otherwise she would've freaked out right away. Surprisingly enough I kept my cool all the way till the end, when the corpse was flushed down the toilet and the open windows let a little air in to minimize the smell.

Few weeks ago I sprayed the apartment with the strongest bug killer out there, and I thought that I was good to go for the next few months as the label said "It kills and keeps killing for months". But maybe I did something wrong. Or maybe those cucarachas that live in this complex are used to being sprayed day in and day out with Raid and have grown resistant to one of the most powerful legal poisons out there.

I just did a mental note to buy yet another can of the meanest and strongest Raid yet created by human beings and there will not a single corner, door frame, or square inch in this place that will not be sprayed to death with the aforementioned bug killer in order to rid this place of whatever group of insects or bugs that are or ~~dream~~ dare of living here.

Even if it ends up taking out the largest bug in this place: me!

The "G" Word

2006-08-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

Sorry about my absence. . . but access to a computer from Guantanamo is limited. . .

They came at night; kicked the door open and called my name out loud. I was in bed, it was a frikking Tuesday 4AM and I had to work the next day, so where else was I suppose to be at!?

They pull out a picture of a dude with a long beard and a towel wrapped around his head, right beside him there was a young lad with a bright smile. I do have to say that he looked like me, or like any young drunk dude hugging a total stranger on a Halloween Night. Behind my Catholic nun dress you could tell that that was my happily drunk smile.

They handcuff me and threw me on the floor; took me out of the apartment and pushed me on the floor again; once we reached the bottom of the stairs I was facing the floor one more time. From the floor of a minivan where I was shovel into to the floor of a cell somewhere in southern Charlotte's National Guard little airport the only thing that I was able see was their black boots. I mean seriously, what happened to those times when a gentleman would offer a chair and a glass of water -not to mention the right to remain silence, a lawyer and a phone call- to another gentleman taken from his castle in the middle of the night?

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, not quite sure if they knew about that little fact because my flight made a stop in Egypt for almost six weeks before heading back to the Caribbean. While there I didn't get the chance to see the pyramids, but some smelly dudes asked me questions day and night about the guy with the towel and the long beard on that picture. If you want to know about him, why don't you fucking ask him? -was my standard answer, but they were very persistent, like if they knew something about me that I didn't know. Or something that I should've know.

Once I made it to the island of Fidel -but on the American corner, they got me an orange suit and threw away the key.

The next couple of years were uneventful. I had to commute to see the same tired faces asking the same tired questions, again and again, about the guy with the beard and the towel around his head (ask him, motherfucker, not me!!). For a couple of weeks they tried to see if I knew something about a guy with a mustache; I said that the last time I'd seen him was on an old TV clip shaking hands with Donnald Rumsfeld. The question on him ended shortly after that.

In all honesty, what really worried me during that time away from civilization. . . well, from "civilization" if you can call all that shit civilized, was getting this corner of the internet disconnected due to the lack of updates. And that little voice in the back of my mind that kept asking me if I had turned off that light in the bathroom or not. Turned out that after 30 days of no rent, they actually turn the lights off for you. How nice.

But I'm back; or better yet, I was never gone, which also means that I'm not completely back, but my cute girlfriend would really-really like to see a little post from me and I like to see her happy, so there you go, a little post.

2006-06-20T13:32:00.000-04:00

My girlfriend just text message me saying that she might have f*cked up my laptop... I really wonder why am I so relax about it.

Calendar

2006-06-14T22:25:00.000-04:00

Left my office building at 9:04pm after a little meeting that could've easily be replaced by an e-mail with a handful of bullet points. But people love meetings and they think that they are good for the mental health of the "team" and the organization and as hole. I agree with that concept, but when people start going in circles and asking the same tired questions over and over again, I really ask myself about their mental health.

After that meeting I went back to my corner office, locked the drawer that contains all ther porn, and exit the building through the only revolving door that was working (the other one was beeping and stuck half way open).

Right before making one of the last right turns in order to get to my condo, I remembered that I thought about getting a little almanac for my cubicle with some nice art in it and decided to go and get it. The bookstore didn't have a great variety and I realized that Summer is definitely a bad time to go shopping for calendars. While browsing the little calendars, I saw on top of the stand a large sign advertising 20% off -not bad for a $8,95 calendar, eh?. I decided that I was gona get me one with the images of some paradisiac beaches. . . but the fine print below the 20% stated that that promotion was good through 07/07/06.

So fuck it, I turned around and smiled to an underage girl looking at some DaVinci code paraphernalia on my way to the door; when I cranked my car I looked through the windshield at a little Toyota that reminded me of the Smart; and while pulling out of the parking lot I cursed under my breath at two women who were walking in the middle of the road even though they didn't have license plates on their wide asses.

I may go back and get that calendar in few days; perhaps next week while holding hands with my better half that is gona be in town; or maybe I won't get it at all. The reason why I didn't get it today is that I considered that sign misleading: the promotion already expired, so why advertised something that is no longer good?

S t u f f f f

2006-06-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

I'll be moving in a couple of weeks to a new apartment and I've been in the process of packing up all my stuff. Or I should say in the "mental process" of packing all my stuff because as per today not a single one of the boxes that I got are filled with anything other than air.

But I shouldn't be so hard on myself. . . the truth of the matter is that I just finished packing up the first of three boxes: one contains my Minolta SLR, that looks brand new (and I can argue that it is, because it has seen only one and a half films going through it in the almost two years that has been in my night table's lower drawer); another box contains all installation CDs and connection cables of my other camera, a digital Cannon that has seen a lot of use in the year or so under my care (and has shoot many pictures of a cute blue eyed gurl who lives further north).

And the third box is a shoe box filled with stuff that I don't know if I should throw away or keep. Some of it I definitely have to keep, like my passport for example, while other stuff are many little papers with many ideas of posts and writings I still want to keep if one day I decide to develop those topics, among other little things.

These three boxes together with some magazines, files, papers and other stuff are in a big red plastic container that was originally intended for recycling bottles and cans (you know, the kind that you leave by your trash the day the garbage people are coming to pick it up). And I should say kudos to me because before today, and besides having that red recycling container filled with stuff plus more stuff around it, I also had the two huge night table drawers (that look like a dresser) packed with all kind of shit that I guess I was just saving for when I had to throw it away. Now is just the recycling container ~~filled all the way to the top~~ neatly organized.

In other news, earlier today instead of packing and organizing all my stuff as I should've done, I went to B&N to drink coffee, read and procrastinate. When I step on my little red car at around 3:30PM, it was hot as hell here in the Bible Belt and the sun was coming down on us unrestricted due to a cloudless sky. When I saw my little car standing in the sun with its windows rolled all the way up, I knew that it was hot as fuck in there, as it actually was, and I had to leave both doors open for a while to let all the extremely hot air out, and the regular hot as hell air of this city in, in order to cool it down.

When I parked in front of the bookstore, I decided to let the windows a bit down in order to avoid returning to an oven with four wheels. . . but as it always happen when I do that, from nowhere a sea of dark clouds came on the city and let down buckets of water in a split of a second.

As I was deep inside the bookstore enjoying a coffee, a bagel and a book by a woman in urgent need of a straight jacket called Ann Coulter, I thought I heard a loud BOOOM in the distance, but thought it should be some sort of construction going next door. Wasn't only until almost an hour later that the noise became stronger and a little humidity could be sense floating in the air that I turned my neck to see through the non-fiction lane that the day had turned into night and rain was coming down with furious vengeance!

When I came back home after driving less than a mile that separates the bookstore from my place, my left side was all wet due to all the water that manage to get into my car while I was thinking that everything was clear and sunny outside.

I used to remember the number of times that this has happened to me, leaving the windows down just to come back to a car under heavy rain, but I definitely lost count of it. I've tried to come up with a trend of when it happens: more often in Spring than in Summer and Fall, but the truth of the matter is that it happens when I least expect it. And I know that from now on and for the next couple of months, I'll leave the windows all the way up until one day I'd say to myself: "it's time to leave the windows a bit down. . . and Murphy's Law will come down on my in the form of buckets of water to remind me that when it's hot as hell, no matter if you roll down the windows a little bit, it still is gona be hot as hell when you get back to the car!

Alive!

2006-05-31T22:51:00.000-04:00

If I'm not wrong "Alive!" is the title of a very popular show these days, isn't it? Or is it maybe "Lost"? Yeah, I know that "Survivor" is still going strong and surviving whatever competition it has, but as I don't watch TV I really don't know wtf I'm talking about.

In any case, my gurlfriend had been asking me when the hell is it that I'm gona update this blog again... and my answer is pretty much "I'll update it, when I update it". Well not really, is just that as I told her the other day (and few days ago again), before she came into my life it was my blog the one I was interacting with the most. But now that I have my hands full with her, and we talk and text message each other every day, sometimes twice and thrice a day, I don't have that urge to write down my exiting daily life for the whole world to read about it.

But as I know that she enjoys finding in this pages some of my unconnected lines once in a while, here is an update for her -and the whole world! And not just that, but few images from last weekend's when we pretty much enjoyed being with each other. If I could've jump in a time machine let's say five years ago, and I had seen myself turning down a party so that I could just cuddle with my girl on a Saturday night, I would've shot myself right away. . . But times change, and last weekend was a time to just "be" with my girlfriend not having to go somewhere or to do something in particular. We pretty much followed the wind, that not surprisingly leaded us to Panera, and we end up having a very relaxing couple of days in the suburbs.

But there was a bit of stress nonetheless: that was the weekend when I was gona meet my mom in law! And you know that you have to give your girl's mom a good impression so that she can advice her daughter what a fucking good choice she'd made. She turned out to be very cool and I even end up buying a bagel for her, Asiago Cheese, which is her favorite. . . don't tell me that I'm not a frikking cool son in law!

And the only thing that I remember that I really had to do even though I didn't wanted to, was to catch my flight back to Charlotte. And as for my girlfriend. . . I'd say the only couple of things she had to do that were way out of her routine were those extra showers that I made her take! ;-)

A Year Later

2006-05-05T19:44:00.000-04:00

Cinco de Mayo didn't use to have any particular meaning to me, other than going to my local Mexican restaurant to get trashed while celebrating that everybody around me was celebrating. A year ago it didn't have any particular meaning and don't remember doing anything special (perhaps I got drunk), but who could've possible guessed that it was gona be the very beginning of something so special.

There'd been other dates here and there that could be easily attached to other little "milestones", but Cinco de Mayo holds a special meaning to me. And even more so because today, exactly a year later, and after five weeks, I'll wrapping my arms around that *special meaning* as soon as she descends from the staircase and into the luggage area of the airport.

Thirty five minutes late though, due to an slow ass airplane that earlier today arrived behind schedule to gate F12.

Side Effects

2006-04-25T21:10:00.000-04:00

This is gona go down in human history as one of the best inventions ever! No shit that they're right in what they say, about the side effects of eating beans, and why people don't eat them more often. I love beans, they're delicious, and there's no doubt that their nutritional value is very high, and that it's a very good frikking meal.

It reminds me of those times when I used to put in front of me a bowl the size of a truck driver's steering wheel filled with beans; and plantains, rice, aguacate, ground beef, chicharron, a little bit of salad on the side and a Coca-Cola to help all that feast go down my oesophagus; and I, armed only with a spoon (big fucking spoon) and my insatiable appetite will eat every single grain of rice and bean on the plate and then some more.

The obvious result was that after that I was confined to my room with the window open and the fan at full speed while, er, well, you know, letting all those beans go through my fit 5'7 body. These days I eat beans only at night or on the weekends when I don't have to torture my co-workers with the residual effects of a nice bowl of beans. And sometimes at my POE's cafeteria, there's this home made chilly that looks so fucking good that waters my mouth but that unfortunately is off limits.

But if this little invention is marketed, you can count me as one of the loyal followers of whatever brand brings it to a store near me. I know that you can always take some gas-x or some Alka-Seltzer to alleviate the so-called side effects. . . but that is just not the same.

Cuota de Manejo

2006-04-24T21:04:00.000-04:00

If you would've asked me earlier last year, I would've answer "two". If the question would've been presented to me in January, I would've wrongly answered "two" -because the real answer was "one". And if you would've asked me today, right after I left my office building and while speeding towards my place and singing "She's got eyes of the bluest skies /As if they thought of rain I hate to look into those eyes / And see an ounce of pain ", my answer would've been "one, but not for long".

When I got home I found out that I'd forgotten to turn off the A/C as I do every morning -you know, just to save a buck or two- and my condo was nice and cool. But I was poised and my head was hot. I was a man on a mission, and even though I love to proscrastinate on every single thing out there, this shit had to be taken care of right away.

I called the toll free line for my former bank down in South America in order to cancel my credit card. Actually, that card had expired late last year and I hadn't even noticed it. My mom reminded me in an e-mail not long and I followed her instruction of sending the destroyed and expired plastic back to the land of my ancestors, the Mayas, as a first step in the cancellation process. After that, the next step was for me to call the toll free number and cancel it using my four-digit password and my ID number.

And before I go on, let me tell you that they don't call that region down the Rio Grande the third world in vain. . . there's a reason for it.

My bank charges a cuota de manejo every three months: a US$ 10 fee in order just to have the frikking card. I've been paying it because I'm a tool, there's no other explanation, and also because I wanted to keep those two cards just in case I had a an emergency one day -like being more than three weeks away from the *one* I deeply care for.

The thing is that one of my credit cards expired and I decided not to order a new one because that is just a waste of money. But Surprise-Surprise that when I called a couple of days ago to cancel it, they said that I couldn't do it because the credit card "had a balance". I grabbed the few red hairs I still have left in my head and yelled "someone stole my identity! I haven't used it in more than a year!". The lady at the other end of the line tried to calm me down by saying that no one had stolen anything, but that it was just the "cuota de manejo". Yeah right, tried to calm me down: I almost hit the roof!

After ten minutes going back and forth on how was it fucking possible for a bank to carge a "cuota de manejo" on a card that is good only as a bookmark, she confirmed to me that that's the way things are down there. Up until the moment when the owner of the card calls and with his four digit passwords access some decade old software, the credit card gets charged the so called "cuota de manejo".

I e-mailed my mother right after that call with precise instructions to pay that little amount and to confirm such transaction because the days when I was a happy customer of that financial institution were soon approaching the end of the road. This morning I got a confirmation of it and the first thing I did after stepping into my condo was to take a pee, of course, but the second one was to dial the toll free number and cancel that card once and for all.

As I said I still have one that is active, or should I say "had"? After the lady gave me a "first confirmation" of the transaction and told me that I still have to call back in 48 hours in order to get the "final confirmation", I asked her if there was any balance in my other credit card. When I heard "no, there isn't" my first animal instinct was to cancel it too right at that moment. Why wait for tomorrow? or for that matter until 07/07 when it officially expires? I could save myself $50 for not paying the "cuota de manejo" for the remaining life of the card and a sure headache when trying to cancel it right at the end ($10 x five more "cuotas de manejo" until 07/07=$50).
When asked very nicely the reason for my decision, instead of giving a whole thesis of why I was also canceling that other card and not requesting a new plastic in neither one, I just told them in plain and simple words about charging a "cuota de manejo" on an expired card. The girl on the other end of the line tried to tell something about the "great benefits" of being part of such financial institution, but I just repeated, very calmly, about charging a "cuota de manejo" on an expired card. I really think there's just nothing you can say or argue about such a crazy policy of that bank. Not to mention that on my previous two calls I'd spent a lot of energy and time trying to explain and make them realize how fucking criminal it is to do that.

A very simple match could've given the bank some extra income: waive that fee one time in one card and get five more "cuotas de manejo" on the other card, that I was not really planning in canceling. But if you hold to every single fucking penny you can squeeze out of your customers without leaving room for special situations like the one that happened to me, you end up losing money and customers. In my case it wasn't much, actually it was just a tiny little bit, "nothing!" you can even argue, and I completely agree, but those fuckers are not gona take my money no more!

Numero Dos for the Misinformed

2006-04-14T22:09:00.000-04:00

I did some thinking today. . .

Yes, I thought about quite a few things in general and *one* in particular, but that's a whole different story. The thing is that when your girlfriend asks you whether you're going to ______ before or after going to the gym, and you two guys engage in a detailed analyzes of the pros and cons of doing it before or after a visit to the gym, you know that you've really hit a big prize in the lottery of relationships.

But not a big prize as in a so fucking BIG that needs two airplane seats to fit her rear; but more along the lines of a big prize that comes with a 24-inch waist and beautiful blue eyes.

In any case and in a whole different matter, after I hung up talking to her I thought about two of her friends that I'd previously met. I didn't think about K, her high school friend that lives in CLT, but about "Holly" and her blonde haired girl friend "D" [her name is actually Dolores, but most people call her either Dolly, or Lolita, like the book: Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. . . Lolita]. Pretty cool gals, I have to admit.

Ok but whatever; actually I thought about Holly and Dolores, and also about mi noviecita linda, and I end up taking a long afternoon nap after that. What a lazy bastard I am. My plans of heading to Panera, or going to the gym, or maybe stopping at B&N for a while, they all went to the trash can.

But unlike my plans that end up in the trash can, ______ end up being flushed down the toilet.

Café Olé

2006-04-10T21:43:00.000-04:00

The bookstore I go to on Sunday mornings carries three drink sizes: small, medium and large; or to use their own words: tall, grande and venti. Fuck those fancy names, I always say small, medium or large when ordering and they always understand. Sometimes the barista will correct me saying something like "oh, you mean venti". . . whatever dude, just give me my frikking caffeine.

Yesterday was no exception to the rule and I ordered my usual small cafe au lait (pronounced as café olé). The dude behind the register asked me if I wanted to upgrade it to a "grande" for only twenty cents more, but I declined. "Small is more than enough" were my very own words.

Turned out that small wasn't really enough and I end up having to buy another small café olé in order to pump some more caffeine into my system and lift my spirit. I used the same cup though, and didn't ask for any discount because seriously, a few cents off in a Sunday coffee would really make it or break it? Any wise barista would've said that he'll give me whatever discount he considers appropiate, as all those coins were gona end in his tip jar anyway, but this guy didn't mention anything and the sole Nickel I got as change went straight to the bottom of his little jar. I'm sure he thought that I was a cheap bastard, because when I was a barista I used to think that of whoever gave me a nickel as a tip. But I learnt my lesson and I was very "customer service" oriented type of guy, giving lots of discounts.

And yes that little coffee shop went out of business; and no it wasn't due to all my discounts.

Arpa Restaurant

2006-04-09T08:45:00.000-04:00

I had to go to the doctor few weeks ago in order to establish if my body (and my mental health by the way) was doing all right or not. Turned out to be that I'm a "healthy young man" and that that red flag I thought I was seeing was nothing more than a combination of stress and anxiety. Anyway, when I was sitting at his office we started talking about nothing in particular, chatting about this and that and I end up mentioning my previous trip to the Windy City. Turned out that my doctor grew up there and when I mentioned to him "Cafe Iberico" his eyes sparked and we end up talking more about tapas restaurants, than the reason for my visit that morning. My doctor is a cool dude.

I asked him if he knew of a good tapas restaurant in town, because he seemed like a big fan of them, and he mentioned a place called "Arpa". But instead of recommend it to me, he warned me to stay away from it as if it was unprotected and casual sex, or lots of sun, or cigarettes and fatty foods. We talked about Cafe Iberico up in CHI, that he knows very well, and how shitty, overpriced, and crappy this other Arpa restaurant is.

Not long after that chat with my doctor, *the one* descended from an staircase at Charlotte's Douglas International Airport and into my arms. With a big smile, sparks in my eyes, and my heart bits out of control I received her with several picos and a brand new pair of tweezers. While passing cars on the interstate on our way to Charlotte's uptown later that day, I mentioned to her a tapas restaurant called "Arpa" and that we could give it a try later that week. Didn't mention anything to her about my doctor's comments of the aforementioned establishment because I wanted her to judge for herself and to give me her opinion (besides being a tea connoisseur, she's also a leading expert on tapas restaurants across the world).

The opportunity came few days later when we went to meet K, one of her childhood friends who lives in town. When we got there, K's unique long hair was waiting for us at the bar. What followed that night, was a combination of a great time witnessing two girls engaged in some of the most fun and interesting girly-girl talk; and some shitty overpriced food. But before I bored you to dead with my review of the food that end up on our table, let me elaborate a couple of ideas that I got from their conversation.

First of all, K must've thought that I'm a very quiet dude, and as a matter of fact I am kind of quiet, but not that quiet. I didn't do much talking and didn't even tried to, because even before we stepped into the restaurant I knew that that night was about them, not me. I knew that after not seeing each other like for five years or so, there was a lot of shit they wanted to catch up with and not even my story of when I was put behind bars for a week in a prison cell in Siberia would make them turn around to see me. That night was for them to talk about their life back in the days when they were going to school (high school) and what they've done and haven't in the last years. And I was eager to learn more about my blue-eyed girlfriend and her stories when she was young and restless.

And if the food on the table was as crappy as only an over priced restaurant can make it, the stories they narrated were a banquet to my ears. Those stories were actually more along the lines of those buffets were you can eat "all you can" and there's a combination of every single possible food known to an overweight human being. They talked about as many topics as two girly-girls with a couple of wine glasses in their heads could, ranging from hair products to past flames and their whereabouts. And as far as I remember, there was quite a few old flames in their lives.

That had me thinking, previous flames that is, and the feelings that it awakes in me. I've been able to identify and isolate two feelings whenever *the one* and I talk about that topic, and I was also able to identify those two same feelings when J and K were talking about their crushes on football players with sandy blonde hair. In one hand I feel jealous knowing and thinking that there was someone else in *the one's* life that kept her awake at night, someone else that was in her thoughts; feel jealous thinking that another man made her sweet heart bit faster than usual with a simple smile and a few words; and jealous and I always get this uneasy feeling thinking of their lips touching. For good or worse there's this Latino dude inside me, somewhere, that still feels the urge to feel that he's a big macho and that he should be the center of every possible past, present and future universe. A bunch of bullshit, I know, just like that restaurant branding itself as a tapas place.

But I also kill those thoughts with the hard fact that those dudes didn't know how to appreciate, treasure, and realize what a great girl Jenn is. Or maybe they did it in their own way, but at some point they let her go not knowing how very few girls like her there's still among us. They had their chance to grow to know her, to learn what is it that she likes and dislikes, what she loves and hates, what makes her happy and what doesn't; they had their chance to learn about her past and to create a present together filled with lots of memories and common situations; and even though some of them didn't have to catch a flight to go and see her, the truth is that she's worth trans-hemispheric flights when that situation applied.
At some point the less dumb among them would realize this facts and will kick themselves in the butt for their rampant stupidity and poor decisions; and if they have more than one brain cell alive they'll also realize that if they want to try a comeback they're up to a very fierce and steep competition.

All right, I got a bit sidetracked because what I really wanted to talk about was the restaurant and the food; so let me go ahead and move on.

I am not gona go through the whole menu and our order, but I'm gona choose two dishes and why those very simple and traditional items in any respectful tapas restaurant completely sucked at this "Arpa" hole in the wall. How is it possible to fuck up a goat cheese plate, ah? What was brought to the table was two round, testicle-looking fried goat cheese in a very fancy decorated plate. No tomato sauce, no bread to eat with, no nothing: just the fancy little plate, the minuscule goat cheese testicles and the smile of our waiter. If you cannot come up with a decent goat cheese plate in a tapas restaurant you should change your name to "Arpa Bank", or "Sperm Donation Center Arpa" or something about those lines: "we extend you a car loan and give you goat cheese while you wait", should be the slogan of a place like that.
Then you have the Grilled Calamari. Good God. Up in Cafe Iberico in the windy city, they give you the whole animal with a lot of lemon so that you can eat, enjoy, and satisfy your appetite. At Arpa they give you THREE rings of something that I guess was calamari hidden inside a salad of greens -on another fancy little plate, followed by another smile from out waiter. I had to dig out that salad to find the calamari rings and took advantage that J and K were talking non-stop and ate all three rings. I thought there was at least five rings, three for me and one for each one of them, but actually they had to move to the shrimp because they couldn't find any more calamari (sorry baby).

In plain-O-words that restaurant sucks! But my girlfriend kicks ass and her friend K rocks; and their conversation was very funny and interesting and the Amstel Light that I drank was ice cold and better than any other plate on the table that night; and only Shakira has had the malfunctioning balls to move her heart from one geographical location to another; and my doctor was right both about my health and the restaurant and I'm definitely a VERY lucky and happy man today. And I'm fully aware of that.

And I ain't frikking going back to Arpa unless they need sperm donors, with a complimentary goat cheese plate while you wait - ha!

Spring!

2006-04-08T17:32:00.000-04:00

Ahhh, isn't Spring just the most wonderful time of the year? It is, and I just love it!

What is not to love about Spring? After several months of cold weather, dead vegetation, fewer animals roaming the great wilderness due to hibernation; after having to pay a higher energy bill in order to keep warm at night (and at day and afternoon and evening); after months wearing layers and layers of sweaters, jackets, scarves and the alike; after having to drive on snow trying not to hit the next light post and to get to work on time; after having to work out indoors for almost an eternity -if were're brave enough to actually venture out and work out; after a fortune spent in dry cleaning for all those expensive cashmere sweaters that w'all own; after not being able to see the sun all the way up in a clear blue sky but always close to the horizon; after frickking months being unable to copulate in the great outdoors and sweat like horses while doing it; after not being able to roll down your car's rag top and after cursing every morning for how cold the steering wheel feels even with gloves; and after complaining and vowing that next time you'll be moving to more warmer lands. . . we finally have Spring here in its full swing!

Ahhh thanks Lord for all that green and all that vegetation! Isn't nature just the most wonderful thing out there second only to sex, alcohol and coffee? Aren't all those flowers that pop up during this time of the year just a blessing and a concert for the eyes? All those little birds that were hidden or flying only the necessary in order to get their necessary food only to come back to cuddle trying to escape the cold are now out singing and flying around with their brand new girlfriends making life around us beautiful. Even the Mexicans that come and mow the lawn look so cool and nice and sincere and hard working and the noise from their machines is just a reminder of the great country we live in. I would even venture to say that that dumb ass that we have for president even looks smart, because I just love Spring as much as I love sarcasm.

Yes. . . as much as I love sarcasm my friends.

And as much as I love being sarcastic, I love making fun of the things that I plainly detest. And if sneezing three hundred times a minute and having watery eyes and itchy nose is not enough to curse every single flower out there, how about having to put back in the closet all the sweaters and jackets that I so happily wore for the last few months and get out my flip flops and shorts so that I can walk faster from the air conditioning of my car to the air conditioning of the grocery store and back to the air conditioning of my car back to the air conditioning of my place. And from Monday through Friday I go from the air conditioning of my place, to my car's cool air and then to my offices super-delicious 68F that takes me back to those wonderful winter days that I oh-love-so-much!

And is not that today I had to start drugging my self again in order to reduce my misery to a more tolerant level of "sneezing a lot" but not like crazy that had left me bitter; and is not just that I forgot my insurance card and had to end up paying the full $112 for my little orange-yellowish prescription bottle that will last until the sun is high up in the clear blue sky and everything around us will start melting due to that motherfucking heat that always comes hand in hand with Summer. And before that source of skin cancer starts to get lower and lower in the horizon I still have to burn my left arm a couple of times while the right one is still milk-white (for you slow people who didn't get it, the left arm is close to the car window and therefore exposed to much more sun than the right one, therefore the crimson burn).

And I really don't want to give the impression to anyone that I'm bitter or that I dislike this time of the year commonly referred to as "Spring": oh, no my friends, I want to make it perfectly clear that I detest all this shit that nature has to go through and that the only thing that keeps me going -besides a trip to Savannah in the next few weeks-, is the idea that after all this shitty heat has passed there'll always be Autumn followed by that beautiful time of the year called Winter! Yes, Autumn y'all out there, and hell yeah, Winter for you Neanderthals with a Hummer parked on your garage. Once this heat is gone, there'll be no more allergies, no more birds shitting on my car, no more Mexicans waking me up with their tree leaves blowers, no more sunburns, and no more over priced drugs to keep me from sneezing.

But seriously, don't you feel that this is just the perfect timing for another ice age?

On The Law of Gravity

2006-04-07T21:38:00.000-04:00

I know that there's quite a few things that are not working quite all right with me, both physically and mentally, but at least I'm aware of it, and aware that there's some very important things in life that I have crystal clear [as a side note I just want to point out that a visit to the doctor's confirmed that, thanks God, there's nothing wrong with that].

Sometimes after work I hang out around the water cooler with some of my co-workers, some of them have to work longer than I have to some days and the other way around. We just chit chat, exchange little stories on this and that, and that kind of stuff. It's just about five minutes or so while I wait for everybody to exit the parking lot like if the building was gona blow up or like if it was 5PM. Today a Lady asked me that what had happened to me, that it's been ages since the last time I hung out with them after work. I mention to her that my girlfriend was in town last week, so everyday I was just counting the minutes to go and see her, therefore I wasn't able to stop and say hi. She must've overheard a conversation before and asked me something about going to visit her to another State in previous occasions, a fact that I confirmed and added that I hope there'd be more frequent trips in the near future.

She smile and gave me the "aww, that's so sweet"; and by instinct I told her that when you have a girlfriend, you have to take care of her. Up until this point everything was fine, there was nothing new under the sun and it was just a regular five-minute chit chat before heading for the parking lot, my little red car, the highway, a couple of exits and intersections followed by some traffics lights, and finally the peacefulness and quietness of my place. And an afternoon nap.

But right after I made that comment, this woman looked at me wide-eyed, her eye brows raised, and with her mouth open like if she was about to have her window teeth extracted said: "WOW!". The look in her eyes was the equivalent of having discovered to her the law of gravity: something so simple, obvious, and that is all around us, but that at the same time is something that no one ever thought about it.
She asked me other questions about me and *the one*, that I of course dodge at the best of my abilities, giving her the very clear and polite idea that it's not her fucking business.

Once in my car and while speeding north towards The Queen City, I thought what was really the big deal about that little line. For me it's so obvious and so true that it comes as a reflex. If in The Law of Gravity everything that goes up will come back down; then in The Law of Relationships if you have a girlfriend you have to take care of her, or someone else will. And The Law of Relationships is not jus for a girlfriend, but also for a boyfriend, friends, family and people that one cares about and wants to keep close; those are the people one wants to keep showing, in many ways, that one cares about them. Not just with pink cards and tired lines, but with your very own actions more than anything. Ok, also with pink cards and tired lines if that's the way you think it should be, but either you have to do it. I mean there's no other fucking way, is there?

I understand that there's different type of relationships and different levels of commitment and stuff like that; there's also different moments in life and definitely different levels of hormones going through one's body; and at certain moments in life there's also different priorities, behaviors and attitudes relationships-wise. One size doesn't fit all. But whatever point in your life you're at, you do have to keep hooking up the people you care about, otherwise they may not be around for long. I just feel that I'm lloviendo sobre mojado and writing about the shallowest shit ever, but why something that is so obvious in my universe, doesn't appear to be that way in other people's eyes? I spoke to my friend C about it, and she told me that she feels the same way I do, and she even came up with a line very close to the one I used with my co-worker that encapsulates that very same idea I expressed. I fully understand that there's a lot of very good explanations for my friend C and me coming up with the same attitude and behavior towards relationships, but it doesn't explain why that idea isn't universal. I mean, isn't it bloody obvious and crystal clear that if you don't take care of your girlfriend/boyfriend, someone else would end up doing it?

In any case, after I gave it a thought for a few miles and once I was stuck in traffic in one of the exits, I decided to make a little phone call to put into practice those very same words.

On Picos

2006-03-21T21:38:00.000-05:00

I've heard so many times and in so many different venues and situations in my life "learning is a never ending process", that I end up thinking that that line was not completely accurate.

I used to think that there were things in life that you were able to learn and master and where there was absolutely no room for improvement whatsoever. I also used to think that once you've reached that point, the secret of knowledge is to constantly keep doing that learnt skill to the best of your capacities; it's like if first you learn how to master something and then you learn how to keep doing it that way.

That thought had been in my head for quite a while and I've always associated it with big topics in my life, such as school, work, tennis, pasta cooking, killing people in computer games, memorizing and retaining lots of information on many topics and so on and so forth. What I never EVER thought is that something as simple and as meaningful as un pico could change my whole perception on learning and its never ending process.

I never actually gave it a thought, but I always thought that my picos had reached the upper most point in the scale of development and refinement, and that there was no further room to improve them. After years of giving astray picos here and there, I always thought unconsciously [and consciously] that there was no other way on the face of this planet to give a pico [!].

But that thought was completely and absolutely shattered this last weekend, my friends. Many people thought that the Titanic could never sank, and it's now resting at the bottom of the ocean; for centuries humanity thought that we were the center of everything out there, and we've discovered that we're just dust in a corner of a grain of sand in the whole universe; and I thought that my picos had reached the apex of the pyramid, and now I know that I was so wrong: there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to picos! Yes there is, you people out there in blogland, picos can be improved and the new and improved picos are a thousand times better than the old picos. Is not that I was performing Picos Version 6.1 and these are now Picos Version 6.2; what I'm talking about is picos that moved beyond the limits where they had been constrained for so many years and into the realm of a vrai bisou.

I was lucky enough to have the theory explained to me in detail, step by step, and sweetly and patiently corrected and explained over and over again. I was also able to practice the aforementioned new technique many times and I manage to improve it a little bit. "Lucky" is a very small word for this idea, but I'll say that I was very lucky to have une professeur that so patiently and wholeheartedly took the time to explain to me the theory and practice while at the same time holding the steering wheel with one hand and dodging Mid-Western traffic [I know that I really made *her* multitask while driving. . .].

If you've been brave enough to read this post all the way to this paragraph and you still don't know what un pico is, I'd say go ahead and click the "next" button on the upper right corner of this blog, many wonderful things could be waiting for you: I know *exactly* what I'm talking about. If on the other hand you think you know what a pico is. . . think again, you may have no fucking idea what a truly real pico feels like on the *right* lips.

Half Full or Half Empty?

2006-03-13T21:07:00.000-05:00

The heavier the glass, the more difficult it is to determine how much liquid is still left in it.

I'm not using my regular glass but an acrylic red cup with my company's logo in it -which comes with a lit. It was given to me [and everybody else and their mother] few months ago, and this is the first time that it sees the daylight. I don't like it because everything you drink looks red: red water, red ice tea, red coffee, red Coke, red beer, red milk; even the wall behind it looks red.

Everything in life is practice and adaptation. If I use it every day, for sure that I could learn to tell how half full [or half empty] it is. And therefore I won't have to gulp down that incredible huge amount of whole milk I just had, thinking that the liquid was almost gone.

And this brings me to the question of whether the glass is "half full" or "half empty". I've always thought that you have to say that it's "half full" in order to give the impression that you're an optimistic. If on the other hand you say that it's "half empty" is because you're gloomy, hopeless or pessimistic. Like if there's really a lot of things to be optimistic about life in general. . .

I've always thought that it depends the direction where the liquid is going: if you're drinking it, then that stuff is half way empty because is heading towards being completely consumed; if you're filling it up, then is half way full because eventually it's gona be full. It's just some very simple math: first is full; you drink and it becomes half empty, drink some more and it looks like three/quarters empty; take another drink and is almost empty; and take the last drink, the one that makes you fall from the barstool and that shit is completely empty -and if it was a glass made of glass, it may even be shattered on the floor right besides your drunk ass.

And if you go back in time a couple of hours, right at the time when you walk into the bar with your clean and pressed shirt, your best James Bond look, and your throat completely dry and your stomach empty -maybe it could have some remnants of that cheese burger you had earlier during the day, but still empty. And once you start drinking, then your stomach becomes half way full and your bladder too. Even before your stomach gets completely full, your bladder had been filled and emptied several times, and if you're drunk enough, then you may come back from the bathroom with the bladder half empty, after really missing the target, and the other half had been emptied on your jeans.

Tonight I'm not half awake, but more along the lines of half-asleep: after sixteen hours being awake, I feel like Ulysses when he was being bewitched by the mermaids songs. . . but unlike him who tied himself to the mast of his boat in order to resist them, I ain't fricking tying myself to my laptop. I better go to bed to see if my *little mermaid* shows up in my dreams again -hopefully alone this time! ;-)

The Office - Now Playing on Saturdays

2006-03-11T13:00:00.000-05:00

On my way back from the office today [yes, I had to work today, no rest for the devil down here], as I entered the highway a police car was right behind me. I remembered that I'd forgotten to stick to my license tag the little sticker that shows that I already pay my car taxes, and [mentally] crossed my fingers to avoid being stopped. It worked out, I kept an steady 60MPH while yielding into the highway and then the cop passed me and moved to the center line.

From that point on and for the next five miles or so, a huge amount of cars formed a "package" right behind that police car. He was driving slightly faster than the speed limit, but way too slow for the usual red neck speeding from South Carolina into North Carolina -and for your usual redheaded foreigner who has to work sometimes on weekends.

I got a kick out of that situation because a couple of drivers who hadn't seen the police car where clearly infuriated about those "slow drivers". One of them tried to use the innermost lane to break free from that cloud of red necks only to see that it could've cost him quite a few greens and stopped short of passing the police car. I thought about stepping on the gas of my little red car and showing not just the police officer but everybody around what 2.5L can do and what does it really mean when you say that you have "balls" [it would've been more "short circuited balls" in this case, but still balls nevertheless]; but I realized that I better put that money in an *airplane ticket* than in a speeding ticket.

And it was a good thing that I got a laugh out of that situation, because to call people at 8AM on a Saturday morning is not gona get you to heaven and is certainly not gona prompt someone to use their best vocabulary with you. I use to feel bad about it, but I've been growing a thick skin on that situation and I even get a smile or two out of that: I picture people with hangovers after drinking and partying the night before, maybe waking up due to a phone ring that is lauder than usual and besides someone they don't quite remember and who looks way heavier than the night before, only to be greeted by a foreigner who in other words is demanding them to "pay up sucker!". That's just the perfect beginning of a very bad hair day indeed - hehehe [evil laugh].

I've always thought that if one day I hit the jack pot of the lottery, I'll get on the phone on my last Saturday morning and will start greeting people with a very firm yet nice "Did I wake you up you cheap piece of shit?! I'm Beelzebub himself and you better read to me your routing number followed by your account number or a fuck in the ass would feel like a walk in the park compared to what is in storage for you!!". Oh, and this will be done at 0600 EST just to make sure I wake you up; and just to add a cherry on top of all that whipped cream, I'll unlock all CST, MST and PST and you'll certainly be brought current that very same frikking day!

Rule Número Dos

2006-03-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

While I was at it today, I remembered the last time that it happened and a smile came to my face. I remembered myself, many-many years ago doing exactly what I did today, not knowing and not even imaging what the future would bring to me. Back in those days, I didn't even know there was a future and a present, and the known past was so recent that it was almost blurry. Back in those days I didn't even know that there was something called South America or China; didn't know either that the fundamental differences between boys and girls is what makes the world turn; and had no idea what Beer was. That's how young I was the last time it happened.

But I remember like if it was yesterday when it happened. I even remember what I was wearing: my school's uniform! I was around seven years old and I was maybe in second grade, or perhaps first grade; I even remember that I cried!

Today, March 8th 2006 I broke a rule in my life that I've had ever since I can remember. A rule that had been with me through elementary school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, and that I even took with me to a language institute in another continent [Asia]! A rule that in all honesty had been easy to follow, but that there'd been times that was so fucking hard to follow it that I thought I was gona give up. There was times when I thought that I was not gona be able to follow it, but somehow I manage not to break it. In an extreme case I could've die, very extreme case, but thanks God I made all the way to my fifties in one piece and with that rule unbroken. And that was a rule that I even took with me through a whole variety of jobs and positions in different companies and countries, and that I never EVER broke.
Until today.

Actually when I was in third grade [around nine years old] I remember that I broke that rule but at the same I didn't break it. It's like technically I did break it, but once you know the facts you'll see that it was an extreme case and that it wasn't actually an infringement of the regulation. And just as in criminal law, it has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt that I had the intention of doing it, and the truth of the matter is that it got out of my hands. Otherwise I would've not do it. Hell no! that was a fucking accident and I still remember very vividly that moment; shit, you must be kidding me if you think that I did it on purpose!
But today that rule was broken.

Ladies and Gentleman of the jury: I confess that today I Number Two at work. . . and that is not a pleasant experience, let me tell you dat!

The last time I Number Two at school was back in the days when I was a poor little boy and I tried very hard not to do it, but couldn't. When I came back home that day I remember that I cried to my mom because that bathroom was smelling like shit [duh!] and because I couldn't wait to come back home. "That's ok" -was what my mom said and send me out to play with some friends from the block. But it was not ok, because for me there was only one universe when it came to Number Two: my very own bathroom! A bit more than a year later I was playing with some friends during break and I laughed so hard, I mean my friends, picture a red headed 9-year old boy laughing at the top of his lounges and multiply that ten times and that was me laughing and running and playing and I end up Number Two-ing in my pants. Oh, shit! That stuff can cut your laugh immediately; like being in a sauna and jumping right into an ice cold swimming pool. Good God, and the worst thing is that I still had a couple more hours to go before heading back home. . . talk about a long day before catching my school bus back home and those last two hours. But that was unintended, so I never count it as an actual "Number Two".

Today it wasn't really a matter of life and death, but it was a matter of getting rid of something that was bugging me. I could've waited, but I lost my patience and decided to give up to my body's own crazy clock and headed for the WC to meet my fate.

I went to the one closest to the main entrance that doesn't get too much traffic [good thing that I pay attention to details such as how busy restrooms are], and locked myself in the spacious boot reserved for the handicap. I'd never felt that bathroom so cold and quite as I did today, never paid attention to the white tile I'd stepped on so many times, never really took the time to detail the false ceiling, and I'd never paid attention of how much echo the company's bathrooms have! Not to mention how stoopid those automatic laser flushers can be; it's like if you can't convince those laser sensors that you're still there but that you're just shifting your weight from one side to the other, then it will almost flush you together with all the air in the restroom. And how about trying to convince them that time has come to do what they're intended to do?

But above all it wasn't an extremely traumatic experience, or at least I don't expect it to be the last nail in the coffin of my mental health going awry; it must've pushed me an inch closer to the straight jacket but I still can't see it without wearing my glasses, which is a good sign.

The only thing that I really didn't like about today's experience and the whole breaking of this larger than life rule, is that I didn't have my Calvin and Hobbes book or my FHM Magazine by me!

'night

2006-03-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

I would like to call her,
and ask her how her day was.
Tell her about what happened this morning
before leaving for the office
and the smile that came to my face
thanks to her
and my very own despiste.

I would like just to wish her good night
que sueñes con los angelitos
and blow a kiss over the phone
my old phone
but a kiss nevertheless,
a brand new kiss.

And to tell her about my day,
shitty day,
that left me tired and in a bad mode
wanting only to go to bed
and in a bad mode,
very fucking bad mode.

Would like to ask her about cafeterita
and Mamma Cafetera
and if her cold is gone
or if is not quite gone
and about pilates
and yoga
and the steam room
and lizard boy
and Panera
and the snow that came down on her zip code.

And to tell her that today
I played some footage
of we both wrestling with our toes
and her trying to take my pulse
and me mentioning something
about an "upgrade"
and how short a day can be
when you're really enjoying it.

And just to listen to her
and her stories
her words
whatever she wants to say
I'd listen.

But this bad mode
has me in a very bad mode
and the last person I want to spread it with
is her.

I should call my sister
to say "hi"
and to give her a pound
of my mal genio;
but I know better
that it will eventually
boomerang to me
and other people around us.

So *good night*
flaquita linda
and sweet dreams.
Think that tomorrow
a red headed dude
will be thinking about you
from dawn
to dusk
and also during lunch time.

This is Dr. Jekill; and I'm Mr. Hyde

2006-03-06T20:37:00.000-05:00

I know that there's quite a few things that are malfunctioning in me. I can't point them and say "here, this is what I'm talking about!", but I know that there's just things that should be different in my life; just stuff. And it's stuff that may not be life threatening but that bugs me and that I wish I could do something about it.

Take for instance the fact that I like to treat people right. I can stand quite a few slaps in the face before I put my fist in someone else'e smile; and even though I know someone is figuratively speaking slapping me in the face, I try to find a way around to solve the problem at hand. In other words, I would like to be able to be more aggressive when it comes to my job: to have a much shorter fuse for all that crazy fucking people I have to be on the phone with for hours trying to help them get their shit together. I wish I could use more intimidating techniques giving less than shit to what happens and happened in their lives that prompted me to call them.

"Your wife of 43 years passed away two weeks ago and she always took care of all the bills?". I wish I could come up with enough strength and cold blood to push people that are already close to the deep end even further and get payments out of them. I wish I could have enough nasty vocabulary to confront those people that filled their shopping cards not thinking that actually they have to pay for stuff they got [and I mean nasty as in nasty-allowed-by-the-law when you have to call them]. Instead of selling them the possibility to get their life back in track and stop the phone calls, I wish I could paint a picture of an imminent Armageddon in their lives if they don't follow my short and clear instructions immediately.

I can't threat people on the phone in order to get their shit together and by doing so my company's financial statement on the right track. I know that by not giving shit about their reasons and circumstances, my life could be much more easier and I wouldn't have to come back home all drained out and feeling like if a truck had ran me over. I wish I could be a little bit more devilish, more cold blooded, bossy, finger pointer, and above all to be mean as fuck.

I'm afraid of trying if I can get away with that side of me and if it actually could help me be "off the chain" when it comes to doing my job. I've always thought that in whatever task you're involved you always have to be you and find your own inner voice while at it, and everything else will fall in pace. And one of the reasons that hold me back for turning into a complete demon with goat tee, trident and tail is the possibility that that side of me could become more dominant and would eventually permeate to other aspects of my life, becoming nothing more than a human calculator able to see things under the magnifying glass of "how can this help me, me and only me".

And I've came to the realization that the longer I stay at this job, the closer things are gona get to me turning into a more bitter dude.

What's Planning Good For?

2006-03-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

There's nothing more annoying than having your Sunday planned down to the minute with a whole variety of little plans and catch ups that you HAVE to do, just to have an unexpected visit that instead of the quick stop-by that you were expecting ends up staying for THREE fucking hours!

I was planning in going to the gym, hitting the bookstore to catch up with some reading of magazines and perhaps my book that has been collecting dust for weeks now, wash my car, do some grocery shopping and maybe some quality cooking for the next week, doing some cleaning/laundry/folding/unpacking of my suitcase, and so on and so forth. But now all those plans went to the trash can.

My friend Alexandra called as I was ready to go to the gym, and even though I didn't pick up the first time, she called back right away, therefore I had to pick up thinking it was some sort of emergency. I enjoy talking to her, but I have to mentally prepare myself to stay on the line for at least 45 minutes listening to her stories. Yeah, eventually she will listen to what is going on my life, but that will be maybe 3% of the whole length of the conversation, so I don't always answer when she calls.

Today she wanted to give me the invitation to her wedding, and to make a long story short she end up staying for almost three hours. She was waiting for her fiancé's phone call, who was coming back from Philly, so that she could pick him up at the airport. As lucky as I am, the airplane was late and she decided to camp out in my place! Why is it that some people just can't read body language? Not that you have to go down to every dot and accent of such form of communication, but just getting the main idea is enough. And I showed her [and told her!] about my plans for today but you just wouldn't believe how many details there are in a wedding. And no shit that she didn't leave out any of them for me this morning!

After she finally left I was fuming seeing all my plans at the bottom of the trash can, but a text message sent from an undisclosed location informing me that "It's snowing!" brought a smile to my face and all that bad mode disappeared.

Life is full of choices and priorities, and the phone call that followed that message and specially the person on the other end of the line was more important than the degree of doneness of the chicken and pasta I was starting to cook at that time.

Wich is a good thing, because I like when the pasta is soft as jell-o and the chicken very well done: almost "burned".

Further North

2006-02-27T22:31:00.000-05:00

*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.

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.

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.

La Valise

2006-02-23T19:38:00.000-05:00

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.

Q&A

2006-02-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

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.

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. . .

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

2006-02-19T15:58:00.000-05:00

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. . .

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!

The Joys of Training

2006-02-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

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.

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.

My Hair smells like...

2006-02-14T22:07:00.000-05:00

. . . 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. . .

Dolor de Cabeza

2006-02-13T20:12:00.000-05:00

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.

[quote]

2006-02-12T23:13:00.000-05:00

". . . 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. . .

Let it Rain

2006-02-11T20:32:00.000-05:00

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.

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]

2006-02-11T10:39:00.000-05:00

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.

Parmesan Cheese

2006-02-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

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.

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!

I Promise

2006-02-08T21:40:00.000-05:00

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.

Cheeky

2006-02-06T20:53:00.000-05:00

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.

The XBOX 360 and the Landlord

2006-02-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

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).

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).

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.

Let me tell you about the girl I had last night

2006-02-02T21:37:00.000-05:00

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. . .

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.

On Wealth and R-ships (2)

2006-01-31T21:01:00.000-05:00

Upon further discussion with the mirror and some post-examination of the previous post, I decided to ask some question here and there (aka around the water cooler) in order to get some new ideas and perhaps some insight on the issue at hand.

While at it, I ran into Tamara (Tammy) a Lady that works in the same floor that I do and with whom I'd exchange greetings. I overheard few days ago that her son just got married to a girl from South America and I decided to ask her how things are working out [non of my business, but if you ask nicely, you may get a positive answer]. And in this case her answerS, because I asked her a lot of questions, made me take this little exercise one step further and try to turn the tables on my whole theory. Instead of thinking and theorizing about how a relationship with an "uptown girl" could be, how about if I put myself on the side of the "uptown boy". I wonder why I didn't think about this before, because in all honesty, is there anything not to LOVE about me? hahaha *wink*wink*

Anyway, back to earth. Tammy is a lady with three kids and [are you ready for this?] SEVEN grandchildren! When she saw me rising my eyebrows she said "and no, I didn't marry when I was fifteen!". I told her that she then married when she was twelve! She looks like if she was in her early forties, and for a woman with three kids and SEVEN grandchildren, she looks very good. I didn't ask her her age, but I deduced she must be around 50.

The story of her life is very simple: grew up in north eastern Minnesota, where according to her there's only two seasons "cold and very cold". She got married right after finishing high school and started college, but after her first semester got pregnant and had to drop out. Then, the other children came and she had to start working because one breadwinner wasn't enough in her household. Years later she went back to college but that very same year her son had an accident and had to be in rehabilitation for almost a year, so she drop out again in order to take care of him. After thirty years, she's now back in school and if I understood well she's working on her CMC degree.

So my informal interview with her had me thinking about my previous post. I'm gona try to write a very concise set of ideas because today is Live Music Tuesday! and I'm already late. Now, all the theory in my previous post sound very good, and based on other posts is crystal clear that I know what I'm looking for in a girl, but there's nothing like having a sea of theory in place to get a little drop of reality in order to transform it into a dessert [aka eat your own words one by one]. The truth about relationships is that you hook up with whoever you feel comfortable and happy with. Period. There's no more to it.

So how about if I find a girl that I really like but that doesn't fulfill all that fancy prose about a girl born into a wealthy family and the education and the travels and blah blah blah. Let's take Tammy thirty years ago as an example, and this is just for the purpose of the theory. She's a girl with not much education and travel wise I'd say she didn't venture further than Minneapolis, maybe Chicago in a school trip but that's it. Would I have a problem accepting her in the case that she sees me like an "uptown boy". How about if she comes up with the very same theory that I wrote in my previous post saying that she may not be good enough for me.

I'll tell her that she's out of her mind right away. And dump her immediately for having such a stupid idea! That laundry list of the girl that I would like, is more a list of "pluses" [+++] rather than a list of basic things that have to be fulfilled. As mentioned before, the basic thing is to like someone, the rest can be worked out [and I can always show her not just the world, but the whole frikking universe!!].

All right. Tonight is Live Music Tuesday and I'm already late for it. So enough of this topic. Hmmmm maybe I could try to find a country girl at the bar who drives a Camaro and her hair style could be described as "mullet" in order to test all these theories. I mean, just for the sake of Scientific Research of course. . .

On Wealth and R-ships

2006-01-30T20:11:00.000-05:00

First of all, an idea coated with a nice icing of reality: people I hang out with these days are anything but bright. Ugh, that sounded horrible, I called my friends "idiots" in the most subtle way I could. But reality has t-boned every single expectation I've had on them, so what a better place to go and rant than to my blog.

Last weekend I saw a group of people (friends if you prefer) and among them was a girl that I also know and who's good friends of one of my "friends". Just an annoying girl. We were talking about nothing in particular and I don't know when that girl said that she wanted to marry a rich guy. This post is about what happened from then on.

The conversation revolved around that topic for a while and of course we all had fun with it. Everybody came up with a different scenario and his/her own ideas, and even one of my friends said that he didn't matter becoming a "soccer dad". It was actually very funny. And even though it was a Friday night conversation, the truth of the matter is that when everybody around me starts agreeing on certain topic, or a discussion ends up with everybody nodding and repeating each other's words, an uneasy feeling sets on me. I begin to think that we aren't looking at it from a different perspective, or that we're just missing the big picture, or that our discussion/conversation is so trivial and shallow that is just hard not to agree upon it. So when that happens, I stir the pot.

I tried to challenge them to really think what would life be with an "uptown girl", to use Billy Joel's song. I wanted them to really get out of all those clichés and think what does it really mean to hook up with a very wealthy girl. I can perfectly understand anyone nodding to the idea of finding a "rich someone", specially people from South America, because every single novela down there tells the same story: rich boy falls for the poor girl and after some struggle where the evil mother in law gets involved, they live happily ever after.

But here, in the real world, could things be like that? I tried to make them put their feet on the ground and discuss the plausibility of that idea and what benefits/disadvantages it could bring to one's life. I know the whole conversation started as a joke, but how about having a fun and an interesting conversation at the same time?

Bad idea. The annoying gal called me "smart ass" when I laid out my point of view and started asking people's take on the whole issue. Her idea was pretty much to get down with whoever had enough cash in his bank account that could allow her to leave her day job and start rising babies. She repeated that very same idea in different ways but she couldn't (or didn't want to) picture herself in that parallel universe. And neither anyone around; they just kept repeating clichés and stories taken straight out from one of the million novelas shown down there.

Throughout the weekend I gave it a thought, and the following trend of ideas were the loudest in my head. Before venturing any further, and as this is an exercise, I'll try to put some limits and draw some lines on this issue.

I'm going to identify two types of wealth here: inherited and self made.

Self made is (duh) self explanatory: regardless of your background you've worked hard to get your own money. This could be a fascinating topic, but I'm not gona talk about this category in this particular post: it entitles making too many assumptions and to take too many things for granted. I'm gona focus on inherited wealth (aka being born and raised into a rich family).

Wealth is such an irresistible magnet that it attracts everything in sight. The idea of finding someone you really care for and that on top of that has plenty of cash is a nobel idea (I should've said that that person comes on top of a pile of cash better).
Wealth entitles access to many products and services that other people cannot afford: good nutrition from early childhood, good schools, peaceful neighborhood and a clean and save environment would lead a healthy kid to grow happy and confident. Excess of cash can help get tutors to excel in school and to have time to enjoy activities and sports that could create new interests and affinities. Wealth may allow travel, within and outside the country, being exposed to other cultures, places, and faces, languages and situations that could help that child become a very interesting and educated human being. Wealth also entitles access to country clubs, gyms, beauty salons and plastic surgeons that could make anyone look easy to the eyes.

So inherited wealth could translate into someone who's interesting, has a great personality, good education and good looks. Frikking Wonder Woman in other words! Now, all that wealth doesn't mean that you're attracted to the mutual funds and properties and fast cars her family might posses, but that you're attracted to the person regardless of her bank account statement. Good, up till here, all is roses and smiles and the theory as flown very easy.

Enter reality: what's the use of a wife from a wealthy family? Put aside how wonderful Wonder Woman is when the two of you are alone. What benefits and what kind of happiness could an "uptown girl" bring into your life; happiness related to money. The most logic answer would be that your in laws could help you with the down payment of a house, or perhaps they'll provide the whole house. And in those very same lines, they could hook you up with some toys for the house (plasma TV, new car, etc.). A wealthy wife could have a house on the beach where the newlyweds can go whenever they want; awesome. And let's see what else. . . she may come together with a membership to the country club. So to put it in more theoretical words, a wealthy wife could grant you access to more and better products and services that you've previously had. And the wonderful people that comes with it.

Undoubtedly it will be pretty cool not to have to pay a 30-year mortgage, but everything in life comes with a price tag [everything but true love/friendship that is]. And the price of having a lot of stuff sooner in life, thanks to the wife's family's wealth, looks very high to me. I'd have trouble accepting such amount of money from my in laws. I've always felt that wealth is such an irresistible magnet that people can end up owning you, without you realizing it. I'd feel that if someone pays my mortgage, I'd be obliged to please them in whatever they demand from me -some restrictions apply of course. And even more so, if you depend financially on someone or at least partially, there's a big cloud hanging over one's head day and night, a big Damocles sword. Is it maybe pride from my part? Perhaps, but I just don't like to have to owe something to someone. As I said, I hate feeling obliged to have to please someone [hugh]. And I also think that you have to live within the limits of your income, getting your very own stuff little by little and when the opportunity arises. To live beyond one's own income and credit opportunities is end up pretending you're someone else.

When you get into a serious relationship, and I mean serious beyond my previous relationships, and you think about getting married [gasp!] and perhaps starting a family [double gasp!!] and so on and so forth, you bring into your new nuclear family whatever surplus or deficit there's in all your bank accounts. And putting aside a prenuptial agreement (which I think is sick) the good old saying of "mine is yours and yours is mine" fully applies.

Ok, very interesting topic and there's many more thing hanging around it that I'd like to include, and perhaps a couple of things to dig deeper, but I'll try to give them a second thought and include them in some later post. Eventually, of course.

One last thought on this whole issue is that based on her looks and her personality, that annoying girl from last Friday's is set for a big disappointment in this life.

Strange, isn't it?

2006-01-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

If you ask for my opinion, I'd say I'm the one and only.

Or better yet, I'd say that I'm by far the best.

Maybe I was not the first, and for sure I'll not be the last, but certainly I'm The One.

Anyway I'll prefer to let y'all check out for yourselves and come up with your own conclusions.

Please take your time to check out these links. Please.

Link number 5 (rawr!)

Lien le numéro six

Link number seven

Like minds ~~think~~ look alike? my ass!

On Liver and other Demon

2006-01-27T23:24:00.000-05:00

There's many things that I don't like about life in general, and daily life in particular. But I'm not very font of listing stuff, so that will have to wait for some other time.

Having said that though, I can point out two things that I don't just dislike, put plainly make my blood boil.

One of them is liver. I could eat a piece of cardboard box if it sits on a plate and I'm hungry; and I could even eat anything that has four legs in this planet excluding chairs and tables; but it's just impossible for me to stick a piece of liver in my mouth, chew it and swallow it. The only thought of its texture in my mouth makes me cringe, and even though I once tried to eat it like if it was an aspirin (put it in your mouth and swallow it with a glass of water), it didn't work.

So liver itself I dislike it; what makes my blood boil about it, is people that after having been told in a very polite way about my little appreciation for liver, still have the short-circuited balls to say that I should try it because it was cooked with _____ (fill in the blank with whatever product you want) so that I should like it. Is like people sometimes think that just because they cooked, then it tastes delicious.

The good side of this, is that that poison is not a very popular meal and is not served very often. And as a matter of fact I can't remember the last time I was face to face with a fillet of that stuff, but I still keep on my mind a couple of previous encounters with such a devilish meal.

But in any case I wasn't planning in talking about liver tonight. . . I just got carried away. What I want to do is to link this very little story that appeared on the BBC about the other thing that I hate with my body, soul, brain and heart: fucking cigarettes!

California has classified second-hand tobacco smoke as a toxic air pollutant, putting it in the same category as diesel exhaust. It will eventually lead to tougher regulations.

You just gotta love California.

On the other side of the country, on the South Eastern, and more particularly in good-old North Carolina, lawmakers are still holding the line allowing people to smoke everywhere they feel like doing it (some restrictions apply of course, but those restrictions are thanks to Federal Regulations than to our very own lawmakers). Last year someone proposed to ban smoking in bars and clubs, and people here (even non-smokers!!!) said that it was gona bankrupt every single restaurant and club in town and that it was just impossible to enforce it, and that it will end up hurting the economy.

Well they were right, but they pointed their arguments to the wrong industry. They should've said that it will hurt HOSPITALS and the whole Health Care industry instead of burger joints, sleazy salsa dancing discotecas and upscale pubs (that is called The Hospitality Industry, but in this geographic area of the country is anything but hospital to non-smokers, and could even send you to the hospital! All puns intended here).

As one of my professors in college told me: "el subdesarrollo es una condición mental", and no wonder why everybody looks and talks about the South as being populated by fucking primates.

Sweat Baby Sweat

2006-01-23T23:29:00.000-05:00

Better to go to bed NOW. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with my very own personal instructor.

And it's a girl. Hmmm wonder if she looks like Denise Austin.

Let me spell it for you: G H E T T O

2006-01-23T21:50:00.000-05:00

I'd noticed it lately, but this last weekend it became way too evident to try to pretend that it is otherwise. And I can even afirm that it's now official across the Carolinas, Continental United States and the world!

I live in a Ghetto.

Yes, my apartment complex that used to look and feel and smell like a nice place for people to live in peace and quite (minus a foreigner cranking up his stereo once in a while), has turned into a cross between a ghetto and a slump. And by Ghetto I don't mean the very elegant definition that refers to an area where people from a specific ethnic background, or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. Hell no, I only wish!

Ghetto as place where there's tires burning on the evening and kids with tattoos all over their chest, back and arms rule the parking lots; a place where once the sun starts to set you are not threat with a knife for your wallet, but they actually get a kidney out of you right there; walls are covered with graffiti, police is afraid to enter unless they are just following those overcaffeinated SAWT team killers; a place where girls who should be either in college or high school wear lingerie and wait for you in the corner promising to show you what heaven is all about; a place where meth labs are regularly busted and people end up leaving in handcuffs never to be seen again; and a place where there's shootings.
Yeah, people shooting at other people.

My landlord (L) called me over the weekend and the conversation went pretty much like this:
Me: Hellop?
L: Are you fucking out of your mind dude?
Me: What you talking about?
L: I told you not to shoot people man!
Me: WTF?
L: You should leave the country. Police know it was you
Me: Are you smocking crack?
L: Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.
Me: You should not smoke crack besides ____ (his three month old son's name). I've heard that shit is bad for a baby.
L: Don't you know about the shooting?
Me: Listen motherfucker, I'm busy. Go bother someone else.
L: There was a fucking shooting at the apartment complex!

And at the apartment complex, a shooting took place indeed. Rumor has it that two rednecks were drinking beer one afternoon and a brawl erupted over who was gona drink the last Budweiser in the 36-can pack. The argument was followed by mean looks, strong words and punches thrown in each direction. One of them decided to take it to the next level and rushed to his pick up truck to get his riffle (the same weapon he used during one deer hunting season to kill Bambi's mom). The other redneck sprinted to his Camaro and extracted a 9mm from the glove compartment.

No none knows who shoot first and who shoot last, but the truth of the matter is that they both shoot as straight as Mr & Mrs. Smith did while trying -and failing- to kill each other in their own living room. Once they run out of ammo, it still remains a mystery up to this day where all those bullets landed. Both cars weren't hit, even though each one was ducking behind his own, and neither the two story town houses in the back showed any perforations. Talk about shooting straight and those two motherfuckers.

Another neighbor who heard the gunshots, got his own pistol from under a pillow and sweared to God to put a piece of plumb between the eyes of whoever walked through the front door of his apartment. And again, following the best style of Mr&Mrs. Smith, he missed his wife who happened to come back home from the grocery store. The local rag reported that she took away his pistol, together with his privileges -no further comments on the subject matter were available.

I told my landlord that I want to renegotiate my rent, because this stuff ain't what he promised me. He mention something about the fine print, but I refreshed his memory saying that there's no contract between us other than a handshake; and a tennis game as a way to settle any dispute that may arise in our condo-wise relationship.

So we're heading to the tennis court this weekend. Hopefully a brawl wouldn't erupt between us so that we won't end up on the front page of our local rag under "The Ghetto Heats Up"!

I'm Cheap

2006-01-22T15:24:00.000-05:00

But not "cheap" in the sense that this term is usually used: someone who's ungenerously or pettily reluctant to spend money.

I'm cheap in the sense that it doesn't take much to make me a happy man. You don't need a freight train filled with gold and Coppertone models all tied up in a red ribbon and delivered to my front door to bring a smile to my face; nor need to give me an envelope containing a round trip ticket to the International Space Station to make my heart rate rise. Small things make me happier.

Take for instance an e-mail with a poem attached to it. And not all those poems that I get in the junk folder of my e-mail account from all those spammers that love me oh! so much. But an e-mail sent by someone that I consider special.

As I said, it just takes a little to make me very.

Yeah, I'm cheap.

On Meetings and Monkeys

2006-01-20T16:15:00.000-05:00

I was talking to RM, one of my co-workers in a side room when AC walked in. She looked at us and asked if we thought that she'd gained weight lately. Just like that, no introduction, no preamble, no nothing; she just wanted to know if we thought she'd gained weight lately. My instant reply to her was "I think you look fine". (AC will turn forty this year and has had four children, being the youngest around two years old and the oldest seventeen. So for a woman with that background, she looks fine.)

I asked why she was asking such question, knowing that she's very concern about her figure, and knowing very well that if I could keep saying that she looks fine, she would end up feeling fine. I just thought that was one of those days for her and that she was just feeling down. Even though I understood her words when she answered my question, I really didn't get it and had to ask her to repeat it again.

Our boss had asked her to attend a meeting earlier today, but throw the following comment on her lap as she was about to enter the little meeting room: "I should've asked Jean-Francois to attend this meeting, because he's Mr. Skinny".

Are you maybe thinking WTF? Well, WTF was what I thought. If it was a joke I didn't get it; if it was some sort of sarcasm, I was definitely too slow to catch it; and if it was something I should've known, I certainly didn't know it. She left the side room where RM and I were talking and we both just looked to each other like WTF. Yeah, RM didn't understand that comment either.

Right after that I went to collect a document and came back five minutes later to follow on my conversation with RM. Before entering the side room I stopped by the small conference room where AC was at and took a look inside. The place was packed beyond imagination; that little conference room that could sit a handful of people had perhaps three times that amount. I would even venture to say that Oxygen wise that thing wasn't healthy at all. I even noticed someone hanging from the lamp [and swinging] because I do work with and for monkeys after all!

For a moment I considered that my boss had thought that I was the most prepared hommo sapiens among the bunch to sit in that meeting; I thought that maybe he said that as a way to say that I could do a good job while joining all that people in the little meeting room. But I seriously never thought that my thin and athletic figure was gona attract his attention under the rationalization that I would be able to squeeze and sit my ass easier among that maze of people than any of my other [wide ass] co-workers.

It was a joke of course, but that joke was told in front of the only one he should've not told it. If you're gona use the word "weight" with a girl it should be only to say something on the lines of "have you lost weight?", which for a girl it means "you look nice". (I actually know of one girl who might like it if that word is used in the other direction. Hmm, maybe I should try that approach with her.) Sometimes I really wonder at what point in time the monkeys started running the zoo located on my floor. I'm fully aware that I'm doing over time there, not that I'm working over time, but as my time is over at that zoo, I've just been working over time. Like in fútbol: when the time is over, you go into over time.

But I'm a man with a plan, and the sun of my time there may be setting. Or maybe it set long ago and what follows this long night is dawn. The next weeks will tell how right I am.

But keep it in mind: I'm a man with a plant.

[WAVES]

2006-01-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

I've set my alarm clock early tomorrow morning. Very early, if you allow me to elaborate a bit more. Earlier than I usually wake up on a work day; and perhaps close to the hour that I come back home on weekends. My alarm clock will go off so fucking early that it's more accurate to say that I'll be waking up "tonight" than in the "morning".

It'll be dark but not cold, because it never gets cold here in the South [ok, everybody at the same time: awwwwww]. Dark and a bit chilly, maybe a bit chilly; but certainly dark. I like when is dark and cold and empty, when the streets are empty. If the road ahead shows signs of an early light rain, the reflection of the traffic lights on the wet pavement awakes a sense of mystery on the city.

In few hours I'll be hitting the waves. Let's see how my body reacts to the treadmill that early.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2006-01-18T22:09:00.000-05:00

My subscription to the new gym comes with a complimentary session with a personal trainer, which I had today. After filling some forms and answering some basic questions about my health, I walked into my personal trainer's office and we started doing a little talk. He wasn't just filled with muscles, but also plenty of smiles.

He read my answers and proceeded with a little motivational speech about how working out would increase one's level of energy together with a healthy diet and so on and so forth. He then asked me what was my motivation for coming to the gym: "pussy" was my instant reply, which he wrote down. Then he asked what my goals were, and my reply came as an instinct: "Pussy", and again he wrote it down. He prompted me to think what good things could the gym bring into my life: "pussy" (that was an easy one), a word that he wrote down with only one "s". Finally he asked me what do I wanted to get out of the whole gym experience, and before I could answer I saw with the corner of my eye that he was writing down "pussy", so I twisted my answer to say "a hell of a lot of pussy man!". We both burst in laughs. He then leaned towards me while looking over his shoulder, lowered his voice, and told me that this whole "personal trainer" bullshit was just that, bullshit. He runs a "little operation" with very beautiful and very discrete ladies which refer to him as the "Master Pimp" and that he was gona make sure all those answers will come true. . .

So what really happened was that after answering those silly questions I walked into his office and then the motivational speech came and blah blah blah. He said that before we started he wanted to measure my body fat and body mass index (BMI). He handed me a little device that looked like a little steering wheel, the handles were covered with some sort of steel, and asked me to hold it. He entered my information (sex, age, weight and height), pressed a little "start" button and asked me to read aloud to him the numbers that will come up on the screen. The device had two little screens and when the numbers pop up I asked which number he wanted first. "The one on top, which is gona be your body fat" -he said.

I read to him out loud "eight point four". He turned around with a quick "what?!" and took the device from my hands. Think about pulling a rabbit out of my hat right there and the look in his eyes; I thought for a second that I was sick, inches away from the great beyond. Of course he saw in my eyes that I'd just freaked out and proceeded to explain that that was the first time someone scored so low. No shit dude, with so many fat people in this city I even wondered if that little device had enough digits to measure their fat! He even had the nerve to ask me if I don't get too cold during Winter. . . I wanted to tell him about my love affair with cold weather but I really wanted to go and burn some energy instead of talking about how peculiar I am. My BMI turned out to be 21 according to my 5'7/138lbs which is within the right range, but a bit low according to him.

So after that little meeting I jumped in the treadmill for a nice run, followed by a lot of painful exercises with weights and machines. I told him about my goal of getting some "killer abs" and he made me do some shit that really hurt my poor belly. The third abs exercise was to sit on this huge beach ball-like and do some small sit ups. It looked very easy but after the third one I was shaking like if I was having an epileptic attack.

At the end, when I was ~~exhausted~~ mildly tired, we had a chat and I decided to hire him as my very personal trainer; just like one of those Hollywood stars out there. But we're gona have only three sessions, each one month apart. I want to be able to see *some* results not just in front of the mirror while shaving in the mornings, but I want to be able to measure whatever progress I could achieve. I certainly don't need someone beside me acting like a cheerleader and saying that I'm doing great and that I have six more repetitions to go and to keep going strong and blah blah blah. If I cannot find the inner strength and discipline to show up in the gym as often and with the intensity of my new year's resolutions, then I'm just not gym material and a lost cause. Period.

This visit to the gym today taught me two things: first of all, that I'm just blowing money like if that shit grows in a tree. Better to slow down before I have to go and, er, donate blood for few extra bucks maybe? Or perhaps go and sell my. . . you know, my. . . male stuff? -which by the way I have plenty of it these days!

And it also thought me that a diet rich in pasta and tons of Parmesan cheese, together with one apple a day, lots of whole milk, ~~an incredible active sexual life~~ and a lot of alcohol during weekends, would allow you to have a lean, mean, and thin fat-free figure like cool Jean-Fran! Have to celebrate this coming weekend with large doses of alcohol and several strips of grease bacon to crank up my level of body fat.

[testing]

2006-01-17T21:21:00.000-05:00

Updating from my e-mail account; let's see if this makes it all the way to the blog.

Had a very bad night last night. When I woke up my legs were hurting me, a clear sign that nightmares had been hunting me down the previous night.

I was in an airplane, sitting in one of the front rows; we've had, what it seemed to be at that time, a pleasant flight. As we started to get ready to land I remember seeing that the airplane had a sunroof and that the doors to the cockpit were wide open, showing the night lights of a city below us. I could see some buildings very clear and very near, even the control tower was an arm's reach when all hell broke lose. Flight attendants started running up and down the aisle shouting that there was an emergency and that everybody had to prepare for a crash landing.

They handed something to put in our mouth and I managed to get my drivers licence out of the wallet and put it in my mouth as well (a trick I learnt in my real life, so that if the crash landing goes bad and everything and everybody goes up in smoke, at least they can recognize you for your ID, which somehow will be kind of protected).

I was confused and upset, because we were just seconds from landing and how come is it that suddenly the shit has hit the fan? Everybody ducked and some other passengers adopted the crash landing position as seen on the airplane's guide, but I kept looking throught the cockpit's glass windows at the ground, which was getting closer and closer.

We hit the ground and slide sideways. I was one of the first passengers on my feet and I even got my luggage from the upper compartment and left the airplane. It surprised me that everybody was kind of cool, no one was screaming or stuff like that. That was a swift crash I have to say.

There wasn't any firefighters or ambulances or anything like that; so we just walked to a part of the terminal were there was a little hill and a dusty path. There was like an hangar behind us and we all stood there looking at the wreackeage out in the distance. A fence, besides where I was stading, had been cut open long ago and there was quite a few trespassers walking by. I could only recognize a kid with a camoflauge jacket and an XXXL pair of jeans.

I woke up in a hotel room and realize that the crash had been three days ago and that it is either Christmas or New Year's and that I have to go back to whatever city I had to go back to. I arrive at the airport and demand my ticket to that city because I was one of the "survivors of the wreckage". There were around six employees sitting in boots and looking like if they were part of a calling center. No one pays attention to me and others just look in disdain. I lose my cool and yell that I want a ticket because I have to go back to my city and that they better provide one. I repeat that I was one of the survivors of the wreckage just few days ago.

They look at me like "whatever dude", like if I'd told them that I'd survived a sneeze or something as stupid as that. One big fat woman stands up and starts cursing me saying that she doesn't work for me and that I can go and fuck myself. I start loosing my cool and reply to her with even worst words than what she'd used. A guy besides her stands up looking mean and I completely lose my cool; I swear I'm gona kick the shit out of that motherfucker and whoever gets between me and that airplane ticket. I even picture myself biting his ear like Mike Tyson.

I'm walking up a drive way towards a house, my memory is still playing some footage from the airport. Behind those useless people in the boots I remember seeing a terminal, with security checks, desks with different names and logos of airlines and people walking around carrying bags. Is sunset and the house, which has brick walls, looks empty. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing there but that's suppose to be the place I wanted to go. I think what would I do if there's no one home.

The alarm went off right after that, the alarm clock in the real world.

I went to bed last night around midnight and I just couldn't fall sleep. I used all my techniques to fall sleep like reading, drinking a glass of warm milk, etc. but I couldn't. So I forced myself to stay in bed until fallen sleep. Crazy dreams always follow that situation.

That Someone...

2006-01-16T11:39:00.000-05:00

When I first heard about you, there was someone else in my life and I didn't give you a second thought. But as the days went by, I learnt more and more about you and I started to like what I was seeing. Even people I talked to about you, said that I should give you a try. Again, there was someone else in my life and I didn't see the point in turning my head to look at you. Things with that someone, with whom I had been for many years now, were fine; were actually pretty good and I didn't have any complains whatsoever. We understood each other very well and we also complimented each other in many ways, I can assure you that I was a happy man.

Don't quite know when I started thinking more about you; and more and more and more. Maybe was during the Holiday Season when more people pointed out to me that great personality that you have and those good looks. So it was during those cold winter days, when I finally turned my back to that someone who had been with me for so many years, and headed into your arms.

You were very attractive and had some things and personality traces that my old relationship didn't. I thought during those post-Christmas days that I'd found the perfect match: you had all what I liked in that someone I'd been involved with, and more, much more; I thought that between you and me the sky was gona be just the beginning. I embraced you with that fervor and that commitment that I hadn't seen in myself in perhaps more than a decade -when I was only a little boy. I remember going to bed and thinking that things just couldn't get any better! Well yeah, of course they could, but that's another story.

But then I decided one day to check on that old someone. . . I am a man who doesn't forget those who've been good to me. That old someone understood my change of heart and even encourage me to follow my dreams, and I would like to point out that that old someone was actually thrilled to see me so happy, because the truth of the matter is that I was a happy man! You see, it doesn't take much to bring a smile to my face and quite a few extra heart beats into my life. And seeing such a kind and tender heart in those two very important someones in my life, I thought that I couldn't get any luckier. Was from that moment on, when I started hanging out with both of you, randomly, and enjoying every single moment. We even hung out together, the three of us, having fun while learning a lot of new things about special people out there and just stuff in general. Talk about the three mesquiteers and us!

But I started noticing something. . . things sometimes weren't right and they didn't make sense. One of you would tell me one thing and few moments, or days later, the other would say something different. I thought it was just daily life, because life is random and stuff goes up and down, that is perfectly understandable. But little by little I started to realize that there was more to it, it couldn't be just a mere coincidence but there was actually a pattern, and if at the beginning I couldn't tell, as the days of the calendar started to fall down and the light got more intense, I was able to see a clearer picture of what was going on. I like to think that I'm very intuitive, but you don't have to have that personality trait in abundance to find out what I found out.

At the beginning, after noticing that pattern, I thought that it had been me. I always put myself on the line first when something is not working fine to see if it was me the one who did or said something wrong, or maybe if I'd missed something. I went back to those early days I spent with that brand new someone and reconstructed minute by minute our first encounters, chats, conversations; those very own wishes, dreams, and plans for the future that we shared; I even remembered like if it had been a second ago the two of us making out for the first time. . . And my heart started to fill with many questions and doubts about my new found love. During those days I saw myself turning my head to look at that special old someone who'd been so special to me in the past, even spending more time -more quality time- with that good old someone. And I started to realize that that old someone, that I've known for so long, was the one who really understood me.

Comparison are awful, that shit is horrible, each person is different and has its own set of qualities, good things, funny things and its own bad things. And when I'm with someone, I forget about whatever has happened in my life before and start with a blank page. When one starts comparing this someone to that someone, is because the end is approaching. So I always try not to compare people. But in this case I compare the two of you, I did, I put you side by side and compared every piece of information I had about you; I even ordered you two to strip butt-naked and to spill your beans out, because it was time to make a decision. I could've stayed with you both [en la variedad está el placer] and it could've been nice, but I'm not a man who likes to play with that shit.

And I finally told that someone who came into my life during the Holiday Season to pack and go; to get everything, every single thing including toothbrush and shit and hit the road. Oh yeah, and that picture that you hung up on my corckboard can also go with you. Sayonara and good luck in your life! You asked me why, and the only answer I could come up with was that I compared you with my old love, and you came in second place. And that means Adiós!

As I said before, it's awful to compare people. . . but I ain't talking about human beings here, I'm talking about internet browsers!

Earlier today, while enjoying a day off, I moved every single piece and bit of information that Firefox had installed in my hard drive to the recycle bin. And then I hit "Empty Recycle Bin". Actually it didn't make it all the way to the recycle bin, because I used the Control Panel to remove it all; and it all was removed!

You were good to me Firefox, but not as good as the good old iExplorer had been to me over the years. Wish you all the best, dear Firefox, and hope you make it to the heaven of deleted software, if there's such thing, or maybe you end up in the so-called Limbo. But don't worry, I'm sure one simple "refresh" from the big man up there, will send you to heaven. . . because you couldn't refresh yourself even to save your own life!

On Looongitude, and other Demons

2006-01-15T08:12:00.000-05:00

Just a simple question; a little and simple question that didn't even have a question mark at the end of it; so simple and so easy to answer that it brought a smile to my face. That is a topic so obvious in my universe that I could've replied with one simple word. But I had received another question and wasn't sure about the answer; I was gona check it out before answering because it's been long time since I witnessed that steam boat with no more than a captain and a couple of passengers sailing down the river, a yellow flag raised on its tallest mast denoting the presence of cólera.

During the day I gave it a second thought and things somehow weren't as clear as they were in the morning. I thought I had my demons under tight control; thought my very own Pandora's Box was firmly locked and everything was crystal clear, but found out the seals had been broken. And I had to look at my demons in the face. . . ugly bastards.

Isn't the presence and the powerful reality of DISTANCE, a reason enough to consider it a long shot? (<--that's a question mark) Distance has wreacked previous relationships in my world, and separation from someone I care for has proved to be a source of lots of sadness and anxiety. So the obvious answer would be "distance": a lot of miles between B and CLT.

The other extra ooo's came from that big question mark that "Shelter" is in my life today (there's more to shelter than was originally published, but there'll be plenty of time to develop it in due time). And those two ugly demons come with lesser ones, but equally hideous, like my very own insecurities and self esteem issues, and stuff like that. I can see them all holding hands and jumping with joy, like children heading for a park in a warm and sunny Spring day.

When looked with a microscope, even little insects looks like horrible monsters; with the naked eye though and without so much fucking thinking that I'd put into it, they just look like bugs. I wish I could smash them with my shoe. Maybe the first step is always to look at your own demonds in the face, and see how fucking stupid they are.

If you are una niña muy linda who loves chocolates and who doesn't care for beer, and who no doubt is worthwhile, those are my very own demons fluttering around, some of the luggage I carry with me, and that's how long, "looong" is for me. That's what was in my mind when I said that "that's a looong shot".

SSIL

2006-01-13T20:50:00.000-05:00

Last time I spoke with my SSIL was right before Christmas; she invited me to spend it with her and her family but I declined her invitation [didn't want to have to buy gifts for all of them, I know, what a cheap bastard I am]. I thought about calling her for New Year's, just to say "hola" and to wish them the best for the coming year, but I didn't feel like talking to her. And I've been fully aware that a 5-minute phone call in this new year's is nothing less than Good Manners 101, and I should've done it before. But again, I didn't want to talk to her. I didn't have any reason in particular, is just that I don't have anything to talk to her or anything new to tell her.

So today she called me. I thought twice before picking it up, but I know that if I don't, then within the next twenty four hours I'll have to return her the call: better to get over with it right there and then.

The first couple of minutes was an exchange that is so typical between the people where I grew up in South America: you go back and forth asking how are you, how's it going, what's up, how are things going, tell me what's new, how's your family and so on and so forth. Is not that you expect a different answer after such grilling, but is just the way it goes. Let's just say that is a "cultural thing". So after that exchange, she says that she wants me to meet someone and hands the phone to a girl. Before I go on let me refresh your mind by saying that when I first met them, and when I told them that I was single, they said that they were gona find me a nice young lady for me and that they've brokered something like sixteen marriages. That was back in the days when they thought that I was just a lost sheep and that I was gona end up being part of their church.
So this girls comes on the phone, she has no clue who I am, I have no fucking idea who she's and we're pushed to do some small talk. Being the nice guy that I am we exchange some information and actually do some small talk, both agreeing that it will be a "great idea" to go out one day. Before I can ask her phone number, my SSIL gets back on the phone and invites me to one of her son's birthday party [I decline again] and gives me this girl's cell phone number [with her consent? who knows]. And to wrap up that phone call nicely, she invites me again to go to church with them.

Now, what fucking part she hasn't got: I told her that I like to do other things on Sunday morning than to take a shower, dress and go for one hour to sing and smile and to listen to a guy [the priest] telling me things I could care less about. I haven't told her with this very same words but by now it should be more than obvious that I ain't church material. But she keeps bringing it up and I'm afraid I'm gona have to tell her, with plain and clear words that could leave no room for misunderstandings, that I really don't appreciate her inviting me to go to church. They're nice but as the song goes "if you don't know me by now, you'll never ever know me"; and if they keep pushing on the same topic, I'm just gona detach myself more than what I've already done due all their religious talk.

"A buen entendedor, pocas palabras" says the good old saying; but for them the a most accurate one would be "no hay peor sordo, que aquel que no quiere oir".

Are U Sure is Dale and not Dan?

2006-01-12T22:55:00.000-05:00

Walking through the bookstore, it happen that I had my camera with me. Earlier this evening I had spilled my Cafe au Lait on my favorite cargo shorts and it looked like if I had made it too late for the restroom. . .

Walking down the fiction aisle, I ran into a trend that has taken hold so deep into American society that no one really notices it anymore. I'm talking about deceit and deception, that according to my Spanish/English dictionary and to Google it is the same: something on the lines of misleading and misrepresentation.

What a frigging coincidence that right beside Dan Brown, the bestseller author of the DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, there's this guy who calls himself Dale Brown. And the coincidence goes even further when the title of all his "bestseller" books are on the lines of Mr. Brown -yes, the other Mr. Brown.

I wonder how many people have picked up the wrong book thinking that Dan and Dale are the same author and that have helped this Dale guy rise through the lists of bestsellers. I wonder how many people have said in a reunion that they read "Shadows of Steel" by DAN Brown and that it wasn't as good as the DaVinci Code; or perhaps the other person in the conversation thought that it was the new book that is -or was- coming out and that she better keep smiling and nodding and thinking that tomorrow after dropping the kids at school and before picking them up for soccer practice she's gona go and buy it.

Is this a simple and white coincidence, or just some more deceit and deception that have spilled from the political sphere of society (W) to our daily lives? or perhaps the other way around?

Firefox

2006-01-11T22:30:00.000-05:00

During the Holiday Season I downloaded Firefox to my laptop; and it was perhaps the only gift I didn't have to pay for. A lot of people had mentioned it to me and its advantages over the iExplorer, and it seemed that I was the only one who wasn't using it. So I had to do it. And now that I've done it, I'm gona blog it.

The iExplorer has been good to me in the past, I do have to say it, and I don't have any complaints about it. Even though the word on the street is that MSoft is the "Evil Empire" and w'all should try to undermine it using open source software, the truth is that the iExplorer and I have had a long and stable relationship throughout the years. But I'm also aware that is hard to tell how good it has been to me because I've had only one choice, the iExplorer, so how can I compare different products and come up with a real and thoroughly answer? That's the main reason why I got the Firefox: to see if I've been living in a mirage, in a complete lie, perhaps in a world that resembles the Matrix and Firefox is the white rabbit [follow the white rabbit Neo. . .] that once installed and running I'll be able to witness a whole new world out there!

Well, I have it now and that Brave New World doesn't refresh as often as the iExplorer does. Complain número uno.

I've been using both browsers randomly for the last couple of weeks: I'll check a blog with one while reading the news with the other, or one day I'll use only one, etc; random shit at its best. And I've noticed that Firefox doesn't refresh pages as often [or as good?] as the iExplorer does. I checked some blogs one day, and when I came back a couple days later I saw that the posts I had read were gone, and some old ones were in place. So I did what a regular non-computer human being would do to see WTF was going on: hit the refresh button and voilá the missing posts were there! The same happened after posting a comment and going back to the page to see that there's zero comments [have to hit refresh again] and so on.

I thought for a moment that I'd done something wrong when installing it, but if to carefully follow all the steps in the installation wizard means that I fucked it up, then all this open source software bullshit is not for me after all: long life to the Evil Empire! But I came to the conclusion that it just doesn't reload that often. . . not big deal really.

I also had a complain número dos, but I've forgotten what it was. Maybe it wasn't a big deal. Oh, I remember, and it wasn't actually a complain, just a comentario. My geek friends told me that Firefox was faster than the iExplorer, and I'm sure they're right, but to my naked eye there's just no difference whatsoever when it comes to speed. Maybe the difference is almost a 100%, being Firefox twice as fast than its rival loading web pages, but a difference between 0.5 and 0.8 seconds is for me the same shit.

So I got it, I used it, and I blog it [veni, vidi, vinci]; and now is time to get under my blanket and my brand new bed sheets 'cause tomorrow is gona be un día muy largo para mí.

One Down

2006-01-09T19:11:00.000-05:00

I joined a new gym today. . . and I'm heading there right now!

One resolution down, quite a few more to go. Cheers!

New Year's Resolutions

2006-01-08T23:11:00.000-05:00

You read it right: New Year's Resolutions! Management at the Global Headquarters of the Stranger in a Strange Land Blog are not immune to the general trends in society and one of them is to plan for all the great things that you want to do in the coming year. Yes, great things because nothing has been broken yet. Back when I was an innocent and little kid, I was big in New Year's Resolutions. Oh my God, I always had things I wanted to change, new plans I wanted to undertake, sometimes I even wanted to become a brand new boy by the time the lights of the new year could touch everything around me. Walking down memory lane for the last couple days, I remembered that past resolutions included to love more my family, to do better in school, to exercise more, to stop cursing, to learn to do something specific, and stuff like that.

As time went by and I started going through the whole process of growing up my resolutions started changing and evolving. For example, when I was eighteen I said that I will stop smoking cigarettes (it took me seven more years to quit that awful shit); few years before that I said that I was gona improve my tennis game to a level that could place me in the top ten of my former country club's chart (today I still can't hit the damn ball); I also said that I will fuck certain number of girls before the end of the year (one of the most stupid shit I ever came up with. I liked to set high goals in this one, but with not much luck in all honesty); and specially I will say, year after year, that the first of the year I will become a more outgoing and more forthcoming boy/teenager/dude/man in my personal relationships.

Cynicism is a trend that everybody should avoid in this life. To become a cynic is to be disenchanted with life, with yourself, and with the magic that exists out there. Cynicism is a general distrust on the motives and integrity of other people; a believe that everybody out there is just motivated by selfishness, and the cynic's outlook is overall negative. That shit doesn't hit you one day out of the blue but is created over the years and engraved in your brain little by little (by for example, coming up with New Year's Resolutions only to forget about them and then blame yourself for being good at nothing for not sticking to them). To grow cynic to yourself is the worst poison that can come to anyone's heart; that's perhaps hell on earth. And I fell on my own trap for a long list of reasons that I don't fully know or understand, and became Mr. Cynic himself. Among other things I stopped doing New Year's Resolution because for what? I'm not gona follow them, so what's the fuzz about it? Fuck that shit and those stupid resolutions! A new year means that you just have to write a different number when filling a check or a form. Period.

And as a matter of fact it is; a new year is not gona bring any change to anyone's life unless you want that change. Perhaps a brand new year can be a good excuse to do things that you've been procrastinating on. It's very easy to say "I'll do it next Monday", because there's always a new Monday around the corner, or a new month and you can postpone things for ever; but to seriously consider doing something in the New Year is a bigger commitment, and a good excuse to try to straighten one's path.
So this year I'm gona break the spell and I'm gona come up with some resolutions and I'm gona lay out the challenges that Jean-Francois will face this year. Hopefully this will help me keep my perspective in the coming months.

Anyone who has studied Organizational Behavior has came across the Needs Theory of Abraham Maslow. He says that people work to satisfy their needs; first they will try to satisfy their basic physiological needs, and then they will progress over time to satisfy their safety and security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Very boring stuff. But for this post I'm going to take the very basic needs exposed by Maslow and will adapt them to my life in order to paint a picture of what I want in this year and the challenges that I'm gona be facing. Here let me point out that according to Maslow's Needs Theory the most basic needs of any individual are Food and Water, Shelter, and Sex (yes, sex, I'm not making this up, seriously).

FOOD AND WATER

This section of my New Year's Resolutions is not really related to food and water, but I'll give an overall list of little goals and health-related stuff I would like to focus on.

The bottom line is that you are what you eat, and how you feel physically. So one of my resolutions this year is that I'm going to re-join a gym. You see, my old gym wanted to rise my monthly fee from a subsidize $12 to a full metro membership worth $40, so I decided to quit and exercise on my own. I did it the first few weeks but as there wasn't any hot and sweaty blondes running around me, as opposed to the cardio area of the gym, I had no motivation and I've been a very lazy boy! This month I'm going to either re-join my old gym (YMCA) or find me another one a little bit cheaper; and I'm also planning in going ~~at least~~ around twice a week. At the end of the year I expect to have achieved a bit more than a hundred visits to the gym. And some killer abs, like *someone* I know.

Food related stuff, to follow on the title, I'm also going to learn to cook better and a wider variety of dishes. It doesn't really take much to fulfill this resolution, just a couple of cookbooks and some time to practice and burn whatever new stuff I'm trying to cook. Don't plan to have a feast on every meal coming out of my oven, but if I come up with a nice dish that I can memorize once in a while, I could say that I meet my resolution.

And now that I'm at it and before I lose trust let me mention some of the other resolutions that I have for this new year before moving to more pressing topics: I have the bad habit of procrastinating when it comes to folding my laundry and there's been entire weeks that I've lived out of the drying machine, pulling out of there whatever I need whenever I need it. I'm not planning to be like a Swiss clock when it comes to folding my laundry, but I'll try to do it more often.

I'm also gona use less my check card to pay for stuff and gona start using cash: I'm gona withdraw a generous amount at the beginning of each week (or every two weeks) and will use it for whatever I need (my spending went so-fucking-out-of-control this last month that I'm afraid to read my seriously depleted balance in my bank statement).

And I'm also going to learn how to change the break pads in my car and how to do an oil change, and I'm actually gona do it! One thing that I've always wanted to learn is how to typewrite with all my fingers. . . instead of the ~~two~~ four that I'm currently using. I don't have high hopes on this resolution but let me just say that this year I'm gona get a software to learn that shit and I'm gona try it.

SHELTER

This is a very hard topic for me to blog about and one that makes me edgy just by thinking about it. This year, 2006, is when I'll find out if I'm worth more than a dime or I'm just a lost cause. In the next months I'll learn whether I can stay here in the US for good or pack my stuff and head back to South America never to look back again. This year is when I'm gona make it or break it, I'll learn if I'm gona stay here or if I'm just gona put my MBA under my arm and finish my days speaking Spanish.

I've always thought that jokes are not just a stupid comment that catches you off guard making you laugh, in part due to its implausibility. For me a joke is something completely different: It is a statement or a comment that makes one laugh because it wraps the true in a way that one's conscious self thinks that it's impossible; but one's subconscious self thinks that it is perfectly possible, and the struggle between conscious and unconscious self sparks a short circuit in the brain that is exteriorized as laughter (pretty clever, uh?).

On the first appointment I had with my very own blood sucker vampire with an "immigration law" title hanging on his office, he said that what I should do is to get married to an American citizen. He called that "the fastrack to become a permanent resident". Of course we both laughed, he more than I did. . . And now I know why: that shit ain't easy at all! and he knew what he was talking about (and at $250 an hour, he better knows what the fuck he's talking about). And before anyone misunderstands my words and thinks that I'm soliciting for a wife, my whole point here is that the process to become a resident is very long and tedious and the system is stretched too thin that there's entire months when the only thing you can do is "wait". If I knew it was gona cost so much money and time, I would have spent all that money and time on a girl! (<-- that was a joke BTW).

So this year is when I'm gona learn if my original plan of moving to the US came through or not. And I'm tempted to say that is this category, Shelter, the one that sits at the heart of many issues and struggles in my life at this point and is by far the most important thing in my whole universe. Actually is the second most important thought right now in my head, being the first one what am I gona wear Tuesday night to go to my Life Music Tuesdays! Now you see that I do know how to keep things on perspective. . . (<--another joke, just in case you missed).

SEX

Just as the two previous categories of Food and Water, and Shelter, this category carries more than your usual night of hanky panky. More than coming up with a number of sex encounters for this year (or the life of love without love as the author once said) as I used to very foolishly do, I'm gona focus my energy in finding someone. And I'm not just looking for someone for the sake of the company, but someone worthwhile (there's a very special and interesting *someone* actually, even though that's a looong shot).

Anyways I've noticed that when I'm with a girl I really care for (when Jean-Fran's little heart is pumping love to every corner of his body), I become a complete different person. I turn into someone who I really like, someone that is not just nice and perhaps fun, but a guy that is driven and optimistic and happy. When I'm in love I'm able to get a better grasp on daily life and the sun actually shines in my world and the little birds sing more often than not. When hanging out and making out with someone I really care for my horizons expand and I can see well beyond my nose and ahead into the future. The tea leaves at the bottom of my cup actually talk to me and encourage me to go even further; my cracked crystal ball starts showing a lot of good things happening to good people, as I turn into a very good human being.

And the truth of the matter is that I miss that guy that I turn into when I'm with someone I feel comfortable with. I know very well the type of girl that I'm attracted to and I know very well what I'm looking for in a female -it doesn't make it any easier to find it, but to know who you want and what you can bring into a relationship helps you keep focused. And even if my conscious self doesn't recognize that special girl at the very beginning, as it has happened before in my life, my subconscious mind sets off all possible alarms for me to realize it and to open my eyes. Here I would like to say and to make the resolution that I will not, under any circumstances, set my eyes on a girl who is planning on leaving the country or the state, as the last fucking thing that I want in this life is another farewell. But I'm also fully aware that the struggle between the brain and the heart is like a fight between a hungry tiger and a donkey tied to a tree. The donkey is the brain. . . and there's just no chance.

In this category I'm going to include a resolution that I used to come up with year after year and that I know is going to take long time to fulfill, and hopefully I'll never be able to say that I accomplished it. This year I'm gona try to be more forthcoming with people I care for, to show them and to tell them that they're important in my life (and the opposite too). Sounds very easy but you have to understand that I'm a shy guy, and everytime I say this to someone they burst in laughs. I know that I'm shy because I've been fucking dealing with my own self for longer than anybody out there and I know what I'm talking about. I also know that one of the personality traits that I carry with me is that I try to show that I'm outgoing as a way to hide the fact that I'm shy. Sounds like the most fucked up shit I've ever written but is exactly how I feel! It just takes long time and a lot of effort for me to open up to someone, and even though I don't look like, that shit is hard for me. So a resolution for this year is to keep working on the aforementioned issue and. . . I don't know, let's see what happens.

So there you have it: a whole new set of resolutions, plans and challenges for this brand new year! What would the next twelve months will bring into my life? Time has the answer, and this little blog will witness it.

First Red Flag of the Year

2006-01-07T20:15:00.000-05:00

Of course the customer service representative was smiling on the other end of the line, that's perhaps the easiest money she's ever earned for her bank. And talk about life lessons and red flags in this brand new year. . .

I went to my landlord's to give him the check with January's rent but there wasn't anyone home. Not wanting to slide it under the door because I knew his two devilish dawgs will end up eating the check, I decided to put it in the mailbox. So I left the check (dated 01/03/07 as I thought we were in '07) in his mailbox and I kind of overlooked the fact that the little red flag was up, meaning that there was outgoing mail yet to be picked up.

I thought that a plain white envelope with my landlord's first name on it and nothing else (no stamp, return address, etc.) will prompt the mailman to leave it in there. Big mistake.

So that blood sucker vampire that my landlord is, dialed my phone number the day before yesterday and we chatted for a while. After the third time that he asked me "and what's up?" I knew that he wasn't calling me to tell me about his Hanukka celebrations but to ask for the check. "I didn't get it, dawg!" was his answer when I asked him about it. So I wrote a new check (dated '06 this time) and put it in the mailbox again, together with all his incoming mail -I learnt my lesson. And talk about an expensive lesson!

After I talked to him I called the bank to cancel the first check. The girl on the other side of the line, who was very nice and very efficient and helpful, told me that they charge thirty two greens to cancel my check! Thirty two hard earned greens to cancel a check in a time of the year when my poor bank account had been so used and abused that I really hope my rent's check won't bounce. My credit has long been reached and breached so if there's not enough cash in my account I'll have to pawn my PS2, or better yet the microwave -which belongs to my landlord's wife. . .

After she mentioned that little fee to cancel the check, she waited silently on the line for my "go ahead with it darling" so that she could hit enter and transfer those funds immediately to the bank's bank account. She only got silence from my side of the line though while I struggled with the concept of a small price to pay for peace of mind. I gave her the green light finally and she asked me if I was completely sure I didn't need further help with anything else. With those prices for such a simple service I'd also be smiling and pushing for more services.

The word on the street says that you have to be on the look for red flags in your relationships, work, daily life and so on; but how in the frikking world did I miss such an obvious *little* red flag in my life?!

What's in a Number?

2006-01-04T23:32:00.000-05:00

Oh, crap! I've been writing 2007 on every single message, letter, e-mail, post card, note, check, post-it, and even on the bathroom wall right next to my name of that bar I went to yesterday. . .

But for fuck's sake, this is only 2006!

Talk about starting the year with the right foot and the right attitude, and by doing so confusing the year number. Am I maybe ready for this year to end?! It could've been worst though, could've written 3006 or some really crazy stuff like that!

In any case. . . Happy New Year y'all!!!

A pinch of Salt

2006-01-02T17:41:00.000-05:00

I have perfectly clear in my mind the reasons that brought me to cut ties with her for almost a whole semester. I remember like if it was yesterday our last conversation: her reassuring words, pouring out of my cell phone telling me not to worry about anything because she was gona be there for me. And I also remember calling her that day, that very same fateful Saturday trying to get a hold of her. I even remember picturing her, looking at the screen of her cell phone blinking and showing my name on the screen, and she just letting it ring, unattended. At that time it was hard for me to believe that someone close to me, someone that I had open my heart to would betray me right at that moment.

There's moments in a life of a men when there's despair and restlessness in his heart; times when a men is sad, very sad, and needs to surround himself with people that understands and who are fully aware of what is going on in his life. There's also a time when he needs to go out drinking, trying to drawn in alcohol those demons that hunt him down making his life miserable. It's in moments like those when he needs a friend, nothing more but nothing less than a friend. Imagine the days when you were a kid and were trying to learn to ride a bike; you know that your dad will be there holding you so that you would not fall. That's how I felt in those days about her: she was right there waiting to hold my hand. And I couldn't been more wrong.

I'm not a very demanding friend; I'd fall in the "laid back" type of friend asking for only two things: lack of drama and loyalty. Above all loyalty. If there's drama, that means our friendship will expire in a matter of minutes as I'd just detach myself from it. If you like drama, you don't like me, it doesn't get any easier. And drama is very easy to spot, unlike loyalty or the lack of it. As little as I demand from my friends, I do expect that when the time comes for them to step up to the plate, they'll hit a home run. You'll not have to read the tea leaves to know when I really need you, and not need to worry about checking your crystal ball to see if that's the day I'm gona knock on your door: I'll let you know with clear words and actions, and in advance, that the time has come. And I'll tell you how important it is for me that you help me out. She failed me big time and therefore, not wanting bullshit in the form of lame explanations, I severed all ties with her.

To add insult to injury, I never got a message from her. We have each other's phone number, e-mail and real world addresses, on top of living as close as a mere three minute-car ride in a straight line. After that day when we were suppose to see each other I never got a single message from her. Not even a single note, a one line text message. Nada. The following days I expected in vain news from her, but absolutely nothing came from her, not even spam. That really makes you think how fucking wrong you were in choosing your friends and in classifying her as someone I could count on. Her, among the other people around me. . . talk about the fall of an idol and that shit.

On new year's day I got an e-mail from her inviting me to join her and her girl friends later that night to give a final farewell to this "fucking year that is finally dawning on us". It came as a surprise and it brought a smile to my face. I already had plans for that night but I decided to cancel them and join her (in all honesty I'd say that 30% of me wanted to see her and mend our broken friendship; and the remaining 70% wanted to know who her new girlfriends that she wanted to "introduce" to me looked like. That was a very cheap trick but it worked, even though her girlfriends weren't what I was expecting).

More than six months have passed since the last time we spoke and a hug was enough to wash off whatever problems we had. I would've liked to talk to her about what happened, but I know that she doesn't listen and doesn't like to use her brain too often. I'm also aware that the term "emotional intelligence" that is commonly refered to a state of mind where you try to get to know yourself and the people around you better in order to have a deeper understanding of who you are, has not entered her conscious or subconscious mind and will never do. More than a "good friend" I consider that we both have a lot of things in common and have gone through a lot of struggles together in a whole variety of topics, and that we've shared a lot of our very deep and personal thoughts on certain matters which have lead us to become very close to each other even though we're not best friends. A better word to describe our relationship is to say that we're allies. That defines very well what we are.

So together with her girlfriends and some other friends we party the night away trying to leave behind a year that was nothing but very fucking difficult. The next morning we said good-bye with the promise of keeping in touch and, according to the definition of our relationship as allies, I'll do something for her and she'll do something for me and we'll check on each other later this week. I'd say that this year started with things between the two of us back to "normal", but I know and I'm fully aware that I have to take her words and promises with much more than just a pinch of salt.

Another Stranger in a Strange Land

2005-12-27T14:56:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

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!!).

We 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!

They call it Snowblading

2005-12-26T06:31:00.000-05:00

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).

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!

Hellooooww?!!!

2005-12-25T15:34:00.000-05:00

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.

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.

On Hell and Car Repairs

2005-12-22T17:38:00.000-05:00

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?

You Dirty Dawg!

2005-12-20T22:42:00.000-05:00

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.

I 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. . .

Out in the Distance

2005-12-17T21:04:00.000-05:00

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!

Like in Those Fancy Buffets

2005-12-15T19:19:00.000-05:00

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.

On Arguing

2005-12-13T21:24:00.000-05:00

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.

Supermodel

2005-12-12T01:28:00.000-05:00

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

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].

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.

... at his best

2005-12-08T23:43:00.000-05:00

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.

First 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

2005-12-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

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. . .

Tangle of Thorns

2005-12-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

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.

Lil' Sis' Bday

2005-12-04T22:21:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

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].

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.

[Monkeys]

2005-11-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

When you let the Monkeys run the Zoo, you get the kind of shit that happened today at the office. Enough said.

But I don't give a shit, because tonight is Live Music Night!™

Yeah! Tonight is a night of friends and beer; jazz and blues [live!]; chats and laughs; and [fingers crossed] casual sex!

Calvin and Hobbes

2005-11-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to remember when was the first time I saw a comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes, but I can't pinpoint it. Maybe was around the Xmas my sister gave my dad one of Bill Waterson's books, but somehow I think it was before that.

Anyway, over the weekend I saw that the whole collection is up for sale: three huge books going for around two hundred bucks. It would be awesome to have it on my coffee table, but first I'll have to get me a coffee table. But as tempting as it sounds, I'd rather get those two Franklin and go snow skiing -the best stuff in life is not what you get in a store, but the one that is kept in your mind and that can be brought up whenever and wherever you want, like the memoirs of a day skiing in the snow.

Or like the memoirs I have from summer 1991, down in Louisville Kentucky.

That summer was the last leg of my exchange student year in the US, spent in a miserable farm in Eastern Kentucky. In those previous eleven months I had the chance to attend high school with a whole bunch of highlanders that didn't know how a shower looked like; feed the sheeps and goats in the farm three times a day every fucking day; clean the dog poo of the 56 dogs around me; kill one rat in my first week upon arrival and an squirrel with a .22 later that winter; date my first blonde hair girlfriend; and have to interact with every possible animal known to a city boy like me including my little brother Donny.

Louisville was a that time like a trip to the International Space Station would be today: a blast! Even though Louisville is perhaps smaller than CLT, the thing is that I was there with some of those highlanders in some school organized trip, and that spelled nothing more than non-stop drinking and other guilty pleasures. I remember that I went shopping one day [I use to enjoy shopping back in those days] and among other stuff I got me two books of Calvin and Hobbes. I was planning in giving one to my dad and the other one to my younger sister, who was too young to protest at that time and therefore I'll end up keeping both books for me. That night back in the hotel while waiting for around ten boxes of pizza with the highlanders and sipping some beers, I started readings the cartoons and suddenly it hit me.

I started laughing and couldn't stop! I laughed so much and so hard that it became painful and the highlanders thought that I was having some sort of strange South American seizure, or whatever strange illness people over in South America carry with them -or wherever South America is! I laughed and laughed and even though I put the book away, every time I'd remember those pages I'd have another "seizure".

This last Sunday when I saw the C&H book, it was open right on the page that made me laugh so much so many years ago! [are there coincidences in this life?]. And it made me smile again; both remembering my time in KY when it first happen, and by just reading that little sequence that I know by heart today, as I've read it so many times over the years: Calvin and Hobbes after getting in some sort of trouble are sent to play in the garage, but the car is in there and they don't have much space. So they decide to push the car out a little bit so that they can have more room. . . and they end up ditching the car. Fucking hilarious! Just writing about it gets a laugh out of me.

Anyway the thing is that that cartoon is so fucking well done and smart, that I've even had complete discussions about what really happens in C&H world. The main point, of course, is whether Hobbes is real or not; whether he's a real "person" and becomes a teddy tiger only when other people is around, or if is the other way around. My answer is always that of course he's just a fucking teddy tiger, don't look any further, and I even point out that there's plenty of evidence to sustain that claim.

But the truth of the matter is that deep inside me I know that is not true.

One Out of Five...

2005-11-27T23:02:00.000-05:00

Crap! I've just realized that I had 80% success in today's shopping spree. My two sweaters Kick Ass; my new pants Rock 'n Roll; and one of the packages that contains three underwear is exactly what I was looking for. But the other package, with the other three underwear, is fucking different! I should've looked at the pictures in the bag, as it shows crystal clear what I was getting [note to self: book appointment w/eye Dr 1st thing in the morning 'cause u cant c shit!].

I had actually 50% success [or fucking failure I should say] when buying my under garments; not a pretty rate my friends for such an easy task. And the thing is that now I have to go back to the mall to exchange them. . .? No way José that I'm gona set foot there anytime soon again[note to self 2: order new underwear online. Donate ~~old ones~~ the others to Salvation Army].

[swimming]

2005-11-27T16:33:00.000-05:00

I wonder if that one was for me. . .

Either way, the past belongs there, in the past. And if you like what the present has to offer, then you'll have to like the past that has helped shape this present.

And I'd have to say no [celos] and no [gfriend] –as there was two questions in one.

If I make sense, good; but if I don't. . . I'll just keep swimming, the beach is still far away.

Impulsive

2005-11-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

Today I had one of those great ideas that I so often come up with: to go Shopping!

I thought that after two days of the most hardcore shoppers hitting every single possible mall and store in town, only the lay back people like me would show up today. I also thought that by today, most of this Southerners would have seen their savings and credit lines tremendously reduced, therefore there would be less people ripping stuff from each other's hands. And I also thought that by today, most of the things that I could've bought were gona be gone, therefore I'd get upset but I would end up not buying anything -and actually saving money by not spending it.
And I also came to the conclusion that as I am young, ~~handsome~~, healthy, ~~wealthy~~, and with nothing else to do, why not go and check out what gReAT hOt deals are still left out there for me.

I was surprised but at the same time I wasn't surprised with the amount of souls out there still engaged in power shopping. And I was right to think that stuff for me was long gone. But anyway I manage to buy my underwear [buy one get the other with 50% off], even though the savings from that transaction were used and abused by my impulsive purchase of two super cool sweaters [again, buy one get the other 50% off]. And later on and few stores down the hall, another impulsive purchase set me back around twenty greens when I got me an awesome pair of pants that were like "taylor made" for moi.

And those transactions had me thinking for a while [giving me a headache], and I realized that ever since I set foot in the US I've been shrinking. . . yeah, like when you put something in the dryer that should have not be putted there and it gets like three sizes smaller. In South America all my tee shirts, sweaters, shirts, pullovers, jackets, etc. were size Large; but now I'm Medium and more often than not Small. Likewise, my pants, trousers, shorts, cargos, etc. all carried the number 32 attached to the waist, but now I'm 30. And the odd thing is that I haven't gained nor lost a single pound ever since I came over here [I've been losing my hair, but I don't think there's a relationship with my garments].

Hmmm something fishy is happening. Maybe as people's asses have been getting wider and wider, sizes have been stretched well beyond their original measures and limits in order to give the impression that that extra bacon cheeseburger with an extra large order of French fries and a humangus size soda, have had no effect whatsoever in everybody's asses. In other words, retailers are not selling clothes anymore, they are selling frikking dreams.

Oops!

2005-11-24T21:28:00.000-05:00

Before I tell you what happened to me today, let me explain to you a couple of things. . .

The first one is that in Spanish when you say "a couple of things", it doesn't mean two things only, but more like a handful of things; a number between two and perhaps three, four or five.

The second thing is that I got an invitation from my sister's family in law to spend Thanks Giving with them, and I accepted. My sister's mother in law [SMIL] called me a couple days ago to invite me to her place, and when I asked her what time would be all right for me to show up, she said "around two". Then this morning my sister's sister in law [SSIL] called me and told me not to come at 7 PM as my SMIL had said, but earlier, at 4 PM. I was like WTF? First it was 2 PM, and now instead of 7PM, it was 4 PM? I didn't mention anything to her about the difference in time but told her that "I'll be there".

And the third thing I would like to explain, is that time and punctuality works different in Latin America than it does in the US. Clocks down there have twelve hours and the day also has twenty fours hours; even more so, a minute has sixty seconds as well as it does here in the US. But when you say down there "I'll see you at two o'clock", it doesn't mean 2:00 PM but more like "I'll see you around 2 PM". In other words, people down there are annoyingly unpunctual and for them to be ten minutes late is to be actually on time as hell [There's a handful of things that piss me off in this life and one of them is people that just cannot be on fucking time. If I say I see you at 3:30, I'd be waiting for you at 3:28 and I'd start losing my patience and turning all 16,000 possible shades of red for every second that I have to wait. But just for the record, I'm a nice guy].

And besides having a very bad night last night, this morning I had to drive all the way to the border with South Carolina to do something that I'd forgotten to do; see someone that I didn't want to see. . . a different story. Let me just say that while I was down there, I went out of my way about three miles to buy a lottery ticket and when I came back home I was tired and in a bad mode. It was already two in the afternoon and I really needed to take a nap, so I decided I was gona be fashionable late for the Thanksgiving dinner, and that I was gona show up at around five.

Ooops. . .

You see, my SMIL is married to an American and all his family was coming down here for Thanksgiving [he has two daughters who are married and each has three children]. When I decided to show up at 5 PM, I thought it was South American time, when once you show up you'll have a drink and there'll be a lot of talking and then at around maybe six or seven, the food will be served and there'll be more drinking followed by dessert and some coffee, plus a lot more talking. But as there was such discrepancy between arrival times, I thought that if I was gona make it at four o'clock I would end up having to go and chase the turkey for dinner; and I really needed that extra hour of napping to be honest with you, therefore my rationality on the arrival time.

Well guess what: they ate at fucking 4:00 PM because it was American time!!!!! How in the fucking world am I suppose to know this?! I was fashionable late on top of my fashionable late time, crossing the front door at around 5:25 PM, only to discover that they've already eaten. When I walked in, my SSIL and my SMIL came to ask me that what had happened, and that why I was "late", could you believe those two? Even more so they were on the phone with my sister at that very same time and before I could even say hello to everybody they handed me the phone and my sister was like "why the fuck are you late?". My answer was as sincere as possible when I told her that she was already married so that she didn't have anything to worry about. She must've said something but I handed back the phone and started shaking hands and smiling while at the same time piling up food in a plate. Being "late" doesn't mean that I was not hungry, but the opposite as a matter of fact and they all got to see what a hungry Latino can eat [a loooooooooot].

But at the end it wasn't a big deal, or at least it wasn't for me. And if it was for them, at the end of the night after they've got to interact with my super-cool self, hear a couple of my stories, and see first hand my insatiable appetite, I can assure that they'd forgotten that I got late. Well, American late because as far as I'm concern I was on time as hell!

Evidence!

2005-11-22T22:18:00.000-05:00

There's a thought that have been revolving around my head for quite a while, and even though there has been plenty of evidence to sustain it, I could never really find that smoking gun to prove my point. Until today, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about this.

One of the worst places to be on earth is either in the middle of winter without heat, or outside right at noon in the middle of August with a tie, a suit and an appointment in ten minutes. Also to be in an airplane that is malfunctioning or a boat that is sinking. Or in a shopping mall, at least for me. I could get into a mall and walk maybe for half an hour, perhaps an hour, but if you want me to stay more than that, make sure you inject me with a tranquilizer for cattle, or even better, a venti doses of morphine and tie a a leash to my neck, like a dawg, so that I cannot run away.

My shopping behavior mirrors how Vietnam was originally intended: get in and get out. When I walk into a mall I know exactly where I want to go and what I want to see and eventually buy. I may (and often do) stop to see something on display that catches my attention, and I either try it and buy it, or keep walking. When I get to where I was heading to, I apply the same technique: find my size, the color(s) that I was looking for, head for the dressing room, see before if it fits and how good it does, and then check on colors and how I may combine it with my existent pool of clothes. Then I either buy it right away, or make a mental note in order to come back and buy it upon further reflection and examination. Easy and to the point.

Today I went to the mall *hugh* and head straight to GAP in order to get me some badly needed underwear. I do have high hopes that some lucky lady would be looking at it VERY soon, even though the hard reality says otherwise, but hope is a very powerful instrument for keeping my head above the water these lonely days. So I walk in the mall and I start feeling some cramps and a little itching all over my neck, and by the time I pass the big fountain in the middle of it and the hUgE Christmas tree my left arm goes numb and heart failure have never felt so close as ever before. I try to concentrate in those beautiful and young blondes walking around while trying not to see all those huge discounts and shit and trying to keep my compass in one direction: GAP. I finally make it in one piece and after giving a crooked smile to one of the girls at the entrance, I head to where the men apparel is. . . or fucking was!

I turned around in disbelieve but the evidence was overwhelming: the men section of the store had disappeared, had been completely erased from the face of this planet and there was only stuff for girls. As I stood in the middle of the store, one of the girls approached me with the confidence in her eyes of a hundred battles won and even more questions answered under her belt when asked: Where the fuck is the men's stuff?

She looked at me with contempt and proceeded to answer "Honey, it moved loooong time ago, we girls took over the store, soon we'll be taken over the mall and in no time we'll be taking over the world and your procreation abilities because let's be honest mister, a men is nothing more than the useless part of the penis; and if you don't get the fuck out of here and shop online for your extra small size underwear. . ." But at that time I interrupted her because enough was enough and my Anaconda needs more room to stretch than a casual observer would think and you can call men monkeys but my palm tree deserves some fucking basic respect bitch!, and not wanting her to jump and try to find out by herself what I was talking about and abuse me right there, I asked her in a very polite way to shut the fuck up and tell me WTF happened to the male section of the store. "It moved to [whatever mall], sorry. But you can always shop online at GAP dot com where there's amazing discounts and blah blah blah blah blah

I've noticed over the years that the men's section in GAP, Banana, JCrew, etc. had been shrinking little by little, almost imperceptible by a casual dumb observer, but not for this red haired nerd. I've even noticed that the expansions or re-arrangements of the stores always took away more room out of the men's section than the girl's, but I'd kept my mouth shut until further evidence could be gathered, and I stroke gold today. Just as someone included me in some informal research project not long ago, I've also been conducting my very own research projects on other matters and this is just the tip of the iceberg, and let's not forget that an iceberg sank the fucking Titanic for starters. More than an evidence this is the smoking gun I was waiting for, the mushroom cloud, the silver bullet to use a phrase coined by Condi Rice before bombing the hell out of we-know-who and coming empty handed, but unlike her bloody hands, mine are filled with hard facts today.

And even though I got to play in the new xbox today at a computer store, and got to eat a cone of my all time favorite Strawberry-Kiwi sorbet from Ben&Jerry's, the truth of the matter is that my balls have been kept in place tonight, as I type this lines, by my old underwear. And they'll have to wait at least until next Friday in order to get new garments because two shopping malls in one day is waaaaaaaay fucking more than I can take on these early Christmas days. . .

ChapStick [correction]

2005-11-21T22:36:00.000-05:00

I found my peppermint ChapStick; and I found in the last place that I thought it was gona be: deep inside the pocket of my favorite jacket (duh!).

Of course it wasn't in all the places where I looked for it: my car's glove compartment, the washing machine, the other jackets that I haven't even used this season, inside my shoes, under the sofa, behind my laptop, under the printer, in the trash can, in my jean's pockets, inside my self-help book marking the page where I'm at, inside my other book that is taking for ever to read, behind my English-Spanish dictionary, up my. . . (no I didn't look there), in the vegetable shelf of my refrigerator, under my PlayStation (which I don't have), or in any of the other one thousand and one places where I thought it could be. It was, where I wrote it was.

I should pay more attention to those clues that I leave on this pages, life might become a bit easier.

On Measures

2005-11-21T20:08:00.000-05:00

Later today when I help myself to bed, I'm going to put my hands together, bow my head and ~~pray~~ talk to the Intelligent Designer because there's something wrong with his masterpiece [me! me! me!]. Actually there's quite a few things that have malfunctioned over the years, but tonight there's not gona be room for that long list, as I'm planning to focus my few brain cells in a specific topic.
Few days ago, while having lunch with one of my co-workers, she told me that hot tea is very good for your body. She even told me specifically that Camomile tea is amazingly good for yourself. When I asked her what was the reason for it, or what was the evidence behind her claim, it took her quite a bit to answer as she'd just given a crocodile-size bite to her burger with extra bacon in it. When she finally swallowed, she said that it was just "common wisdom" -short for "I don't have fucking idea but don't you think that my bleach blonde hair looks great today?" [just for the record: NO!].

Anyway, as Jean-Francois is trying to get is life back on track, or finally on some sort of track, and he'd decided that he's going to start from the very-very beginning and is going to cut back on coffee and would start drinking more hot tea. That's indeed the beginning of the very beginning, based on his very own "common wisdom" claim. So today when he went to B&N to read magazines for free and to expand his horizons and knowledge, he ordered a Camomile tea; the 16oz size. Big enough to last as long as it was suppose to last.

And talking about lasting, is widely known that different units are used to measure different things: a minute, a second, a kilogram, centimeter, inch, foot, joules, volts, newtons, etc. But how about using the good old capacity of your bladder while trying to read a magazine as a measure?. And is here, my friends, where my complain to the Intelligent Designer out there is going to be directed to. Picture this for a moment: I started reading TIME magazine and sipping my ~~coffee~~ hot tea; the less steaming hot it got the more I drank and therefore the more I enjoy it. Hot women is cool with me, hot tea tend to burn my tongue therefore not cool at all. Before I finish reading TIME I've finished my hot tea and the empty paper cup was sitting on the little coffee table in front of me.

Let me point out that the first place that I went to when I walked into the store wasn't the adult magazines section, was the men's room in order to take care of "number one". So by the time I sat down with the magazines, the hot tea and the ChapStick in my jacket's pocket, my bladder was pretty much empty. Once I finished reading TIME from cover to cover [minus what I didn't want to read] my bladder was reaching a dangerous level that prompt me to make the second visit of the night to the men's room.

When I came back I picked up Newsweek magazine and things down my belly button resembled the movie The Fast and the Furious, as I had to make two more trips before finishing the magazine; two more fucking trips! Good thing I'm a man and I can pee standing up and therefore everywhere on this planet, but the disadvantages of being a civilized Hommo Sapiens is that there's specific locations where you have to take care of business, otherwise I would've pissed in the corner where all the monopoly games and the calendars for next year are displayed instead of taking that looong trip to the men's. [When I was a little kid I liked to pic inside the girls restroom, which got me in quite a few troubles, but that's another story].

So once I was done with Darwin and after I skipped the NoLa Blues, I put the magazines back where I took them from [I'm such a good citizen] and picked up another one about pc games and the new xbox. As I was flipping throughout the pages I really thought that this was a bad joke because then again, my free-sample size bladder was again reaching its limit and when I say enough it is fucking enough and it was enough with the whole peeing thing! I stood up, left the magazine on the coffee table, took the empty paper cup and crushed like if I was fucking King-Kong smashing a little Honda Insight on his way to the Empire State building and stormed out of the store. Then, stupid me, I had to speed on my way back home because that shit, I mean that pee, was real and I almost have to pee on my neighbor's car's tire like a dawg because it was either number one right there and right then or fucking number one in my pants. [For the record I manage to climb the stairs, turn the knob while unbuttoning my jeans, and even though I'm sure I spilled a little bit outside, I managed to score a three point shot in the electric chair. Way to go Champ!].

So, four trips to the restroom for a 16oz cup of hot tea and three magazines? Clearly something is wrong around here. And this goes to the Intelligent Designer out there: you better get your facts and graphics and original plans straight because I'm filling a big complain with you; and you better make some ~~evolutions~~ ~~up grades~~ ~~changes~~ miracles to your red haired MAstERpiEcE or face a fresh new wave of complains in the future. . . With all due respect, of course.

ChapStick

2005-11-21T00:15:00.000-05:00

Today I bought the second ChapStick of the season, as the first one lasted me less than a week if I remember well. I always lost them, either deep inside the pockets of a jacket, or are thrown in the washing machine with my jeans, or who knows, maybe some little ~~dwarf~~ fairy takes it just to give me a hard time.

My last ChapStick had peppermint flavor [my favorite], but when I stop at the gas station the only one available was the one in the picture. . .

Today, late in the afternoon, I was wondering if my dry lips are due to the cold weather or the lack of sweet kisses. . .

Bad Kitties

2005-11-20T22:23:00.000-05:00

Who said that Charlotte, NC is not an exiting place to be? Who could be so un-patriotic as to say that there's no excitement and thrill in CLT's daily life?

It was me. And I was fucking right.

But once in a while something comes to this town that blows the hats off every gentleman and lift the long skirts or all women and there's non-stop talk and gossip about it. Back in the days it was the Panther's football players: they were getting DUI's on weekly bases, being thrown in and out of jail more often than they took showers and even one of them end up hiring someone to 'take out' his girlfriend; no shit my friends, those were the golden years around here. In the meantime everybody else was still praying the Lord and donating heavily to their own mega churches to buy salvation before it was too late.

But those times were left behind and the excitement worn off; even the Panthers made it all the the way to the Super Bowl and this little ~~hole in the wall~~ town with skyscrapers went crazy. Even Jean-Francois was caught in the whole frenziness and he end up yelling in front of the TV for the local team to bring the trophy home! And he did it because it was common wisdom around the water cooler that it was one shot in a lifetime for this corner of the ~~world~~ country to go and to actually win the Super Tazón.

And who would think that this time the excitement would return hand in hand with a wonderful cold weather?! And let me just say that w'all just can't get enough of the latest scandal to hit the Queen City, as people like to refer to CLT. And the excitement has hit even the front page of the BBC! Very smartly, they included a map in order to show where the fuck on this planet that little dream city filled with mega churches, SUVs, eateries and shopping malls is located at. You just have to love the BBC for picking up quality material.

The news broke out locally on November 7 on the B section of the "Charlotte Disturber", our local rag [I apologize for not mentioning anything before]. Two of the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were arrested down in Tampa after a fight in a night club's bathroom. But if that is juicy enough, let me quote straight from the newspaper of this Red State what happened:

Witnesses told police the two cheerleaders were engaged in sexual activity in
the bathroom stall. Other customers got angry and started yelling, "because they
took too long" in the stall.

I am kidding you not, you can read it for yourself [do it] as I scanned the article just for you, my loyal readers [here and here]. Then, when the girls emerged from the bathroom stall after some luving, the other fat ass customers that were waiting in line in order to empty their intestines after a big dinner, must've said something to this two Topcats and a frikking cat fight erupted. The first article doesn't say anything about whether the ladies that were knocking on the door finally used the stall or not, a mystery still unresolved, but an exchange of jabs and uppercuts left one woman with a black eye.

Then, the next day [November 8] the story was moved to the front page of the newspaper and this little town went crazy. In the nine-year history of the internet edition, that was the the third most e-mailed story; and the web page of the Carolina Panthers that contains the profiles and pictures of the cheerleaders had to be shut down due to the amount of hits it received. That was certainly a "Monday morning with little work done", as the paper said.

Still today, after almost two weeks people would arrive at the water cooler panting and catching their breath with the latest news: someone saw one of the cheerleaders at the mall sporting big sunglasses and acting weird; the dealer of one of the girls emerged somewhere and is asking money for some detailed information about his clients; even the security guard in our office building said that he saw a video á la Paris Hilton between the two cheerleaders, and that for two hundred bucks it can also be yours; the CEO of the company even venture to say that they were not alone but were making out with two other players in the bathroom stall, but they're taking the bullet in order to save the team. . . In other words: you name it, and people have already thought about it in this conservative state.

The PR people from Topcats and the Panthers have been stonewalling and have avoided mentioning anything; but w'all know that calm waters are deep, and sooner or later all the juice of this story will pour out for us all, Charlotteans, to get all the hard facts -I mean, just for the sake of setting the record straight of course and avoiding any missunderinterpretations.

[rain]

2005-11-19T20:06:00.000-05:00

I'm sick and this shit is not funny. My very personal recipe of swallowing as many Vitamin C pills as possible, in order to jump start my production of white blood cells that could do what they do best and is to fight whatever crazy virus is trying to make my life miserable, hasn't worked. An overdose of Benadril Severe Cold Relief earlier this week, left me acting like a zombie and still feeling like shit. My late grandma's recipe, of boiling hot tea with a ton of lemons squeezed in it and honey to do the trick, has helped me to miss and to remember her and the fact that she passed away about a year ago, but illness-wise, has done nothing [I even burned my tongue]. The common wisdom of wrapping yourself in several layers of sweaters and blankets in order to "sweat" the cold, has proven effective on the surface [the sweating part], but the illness has its claws stick deep inside my poor self and don't want to let go.

I wonder what is this illness seeing in such a nice guy like me? I eat an apple a day, which should've kept the doctor away, but is that virus maybe as font as as I am of those Red Delicious Apples? I even talked to Rose-Marie, a friend of my mom who lives here in CLT, and she told me that she's praying for my recuperation on top of all the praying that she says she does for me, but this illness has proven resistant to even the Intelligent Designer [oddly funny if you give it a second thought, doesn't it?].

Maybe things got worst because on Tuesday I behaved bad and end up going to the blues concert; and drinking a couple of ice cold beers, and walking out to the parking lot late at night with only my black v-neck sweater while a nice and cool wind was hitting the city. That was clearly a recipe for things getting worse on top of bad.

And Thursday, instead of being a good boy and coming straight home to take my medicines and blog about it, I went out and broke one of my golden rules. Well, not one of THE golden rules, but one of those little rules that I impose to myself after learning a lesson here and there. "Never, ever, buy a book based on its cover" is the aforementioned rule, the one that I broke. And as I was breaking the rule, I went ahead and broke it in style and got me instead of one, three books. I didn't break the rule three times, I broke it once because it all happened at the same time and only one credit card receipt was produced [whatever].

I got me a non-fiction book that has proven to be as thick and heavy as a cinder block; a novel that is nothing more than what a monkey with a type machine could produce; and a self-help book. Yeah, you read it right: Jean-Francois got himself a self-help book. . . which hopefully would help him figure out stuff.

There has been a big gray cloud over the building that houses the headquarters of the StrangerInStrangeLand blog [aka my life] and is not going away. I amaze myself sometimes with the amount of shit that I'm able to write on this pages and how little I talk about myself and what is going on in my life. Last time I had this thoughts I end up taking a looong hiatus from this pages, but the difference is that I now know that it didn't help a bit on the things that I have to face sooner or later; and that today there's not a cute girl beside me, like there was back then, who could help me figure out stuff and just share all those little silly things that make relationships and life so special.

I would like to brush all that off blaming it on my cold and my overdoses of the last days, but there are things in life that have to be faced and live with the consequences of those decisions. Being on a limbo, not knowing what to do, is perhaps the worst state where someone can be. That's why I got a self-help book: one little first step on my way to more sunny days in the future. If it doesn't work then it will be a shrink and a ton of happy pills to go with it, allowing me to live happily ever after; and if it there's no results, I'd perhaps go for a lobotomy.

On Torture

2005-11-16T22:56:00.000-05:00

[...]We are hardened to what we know, and we rationalize and even justify cruelties practiced by us and our like while retaining the capacity to be outraged, even disgusted by practices equally cruel which, under the hands of strangers, take a different form.

A History of Warfare, John Keegan [p.09]

Overdose

2005-11-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

I woke up with a cold today; and I've been feeling like if I had a cold all day. Why couldn't it wait until tomorrow to hit me, why today? I was planning in going to one of the local holes on the wall to listen to some live blues and jazz, have a couple of cold ones, chat with friends, and come back home and sleep like an angel. But now my plan is pretty much to overdose myself with some of that cold medicine, dig out of the closet all those blankets that I never use, and wrap myself in quite a few pullovers in order to sweat all this bad energy out of me. I hate all those blankets and shit, I always sleep with a clean and fresh cotton tee shirt. . . the rest I'll leave it to your imagination.

I'm sure this little illness has nothing to do with that Lemon Mandarin Chicken that I had yesterday at the Chinese Buffet down the road from my condo. When I approached the owner to say "hi", he recommend it to me pointing out that his uncle had smuggled the chickens himself from Guangzhou [South China] few days back. His exact words, when describing that poor animal, were that it was "sweet and tender". I didn't want to offend him nor his tootles uncle who was in a corner of the restaurant sipping a cup of green tea and smoking a cigarette that looked like a clove, and I had a tray-size plate of that bird.

That last paragraph is just a whole bunch of bullshit. Time to take *two* too many pills and hopefully I'll wake up like a new man tomorrow!

Autumn in NC? My Ass!

2005-11-14T20:23:00.000-05:00

This is just ridiculous: right in the middle of November and still having to put up with temperatures close to 80 degrees during the day? Give me a motherfucking break!

Autumn is my favorite time of the year; among other things I love that red-ish, orange-ish and yellow-ish tones on the trees; that nice and cool north eastern wind that comes down on this area; the smell of logs being burned while families get together around the chimney; the digging out of all the the cold weather garments that had hibernated for so many months in the back of the closet; and above all because Autumn is the threshold to Winter, the best part of the year for me.

Autumn has also a very special part in my heart. Memoirs of great friends, memorable situations, and past flames always come to my mind with Fall as a background; even if they happened in a different season, I always recount them during that magic trimester before the end of the year. Walking down in a park, hand in hand with a loved one, dry leaves been blown by a cool wind, and the smell of a dry clean jacket and distant chimney fires in the air would transport me back in time and space to sweeter moments. . . charging my batteries and propelling me into what the future might hold, a brighter future perhaps. . . But no Autumn, no shit, no nothing. Like these crazy November days that I've been having to put up with.

For all you people out there who might have a more direct line with the Intelligent Designer, could you please let him know that his creation went loco? Let him know, while praying that he's an awesome God, that down in the Bible Belt, where his more hardcore followers inhabit, the seasons haven't change as they suppose to this year? Let him know, while putting your hands together and bowing your head, that people down here really fear him, and if he could maybe scare the shit out of everybody with non-stop freezing temperatures and winds and snow and misery all the way to let's say June or so, people would really REALLY fear him? Let him know, while accepting him as your savior, that a move like that would make even devil-possessed Jean-Francois to drop to his knees and sing Aleluya from the top of his lounges? Is it really too much to ask you to ask him to please send a blizzard on this direction so that cool Jean-Fran can use his cold weather garments and stop complaining? Com'on brothers and sistas', have some compassion with this pour soul!

Like a month ago I got all my sweaters, jackets, scarves, gloves, pullovers and all that stuff from the back of my closet and stood in front of the mirror ready to wear'em all at the first hint of cold weather. But we've had a heat wave that is not going away; like a cloud of mosquitoes that no matter how much Raid you spray on them would not go away, this warm weather seems today that is going to stay around until, God forbid, spring! [As a side note, let me just clarify that I don't have a back and a front closet; but for example I unwrapped my awesome pea coat jacket portrayed by that male stud in the above picture that I got in GAP two years ago after being discounted from $150 or so to something like $19,99 and that I even got right in the middle of January. Sweet deal!].

If things don't change this week, I'm seriously planning to weave a little Voodo Doll of myself and stick it in the freezer. That shit might either do the trick or keep me entertain until the thermometer falls to a more decent temperature.

Subscriptions

2005-11-14T06:08:00.000-05:00

I'm subscribed to three publications: One is The Economist, of which I've been a subscriber since '99 and that has been taking my few greens as that shit is expensive as hell; even the introductory offer is so high priced relative to other publications!. But I've managed to be a "new subscriber" more than I can remember, saving quite a few bucks in the process. Hey, at least I don't use my criminal mind to rob banks, or steal from my company, or shit like that: I just don't answer more than I've been asked, when it comes to my subscription, that is.

The other subscription I have is to Time magazine. I wasn't planning in getting one, because I usually read it for free at the local bookstore and because I can't find much juice in its pages. But one sunny afternoon I was invited to a cookout with my brand new family in law and one of their kids corner me to buy a subscription for some sort of fundraising in his elementary school. Anyway that was only fifteen bucks for a whole year's supply! Don't tell me it wasn't a sweet deal?! [even though you can't clean windows with it, still it was cheap].

And the third subscription I have is to FHM [For Him Magazine]. The introductory offer was like less than a buck per magazine, and the renewal was almost the same price plus it was a "buy one get two" deal; being the good friend that I am, I gave my friend Stephan the other copy [don't know how please his wife would be though]. And certainly I would've pay more for that magazine as it's perhaps one of the funniest things I've ever came across with. It has the kind of humor that is sarcastic and well planned, and not those typical and so fucking obvious jokes with laughs in the background that are poisoning our children's minds these days.

FHM has beautiful woman splashed all over its pages, not naked but with small pieces of garment on them. And if the human body is the most amazing creation [or evolution] ever, the female body is the closest thing to perfection on the whole universe. Besides all that beauty, the articles and letters and notes and columns and comments and reviews are filled with a delightful and smart blanket of sarcasm that cracks me up. The old joke says that people buy Playboy Magazine for the articles, not the girls; and in this case I'd say that I started my subscription for the girls, and end up enjoying the articles as much as the beauty in its pages. And the publication has so many clever sections intended to encourage people to write to them and to participate in the publication, that it surprises me that other more serious publications hasn't picked it up yet.

Wrapping up I'd just like to say that if one day you're at your local bookstore, go ahead and pick it up, look through its pages and READ some of the stuff in there, you won't be disappointed. Check out "From the Boss's Desk" or Captain Ka-Ching", or "Letters from our Readers". Hilarious stuff.

It would be sad to think that after this little paragraphs you still think that men on this planet are shallow, and that they "see better than they think" as one lady once told me [bitch!]. I tried my best to explain why I have a subscription to FHM and why I renew it. Hope I didn't fail miserable. But if I did, just keep in mind that I have a brand new subscription for a whole year and no one is going to take it away from me!

On Pictionary and...

2005-11-13T23:58:00.000-05:00

Last night was a night of Pictionary, high emotions, and a night when I fully realized that I am a boob man, hell yeah. There was also a night where my poor little heart got tested: but not the heart that is attached to my love life, I'm talking about the real one, the one hidden under my hairy chest. And believe it or not it was a night were many asses got kicked, and even though I shouldn't say it in this pages, my ass was one of the kicked ones. And overall was a night with friends, beer and a very cool time.

And it was a night when after more than a year away from them, I got to wear my contact lenses again. And if I questioned myself earlier that night of why it had been so long since the last time, by the time I got home and tried to unglue them from my eyes, the answer was obvious.

Pictionary is such a cool game. My friends had it, and after a session of karaoke we end up playing it. The early karaoke session went as it always does: everybody is kind of timid at the beginning, no one really wants to sign or no one knows which song to sing, and then after someone jumps in the water and sings some of those cheesy songs, then everybody's Lucianno Pavaroty emerges and the poor microphone is ripped off from whoever has it. And of course regardless of who had the microphone we end up singing those oldies but goodies from the top of our lungs. . . so loud that the poor next door neighbor came to tell us to please shut the fuck up before it starts raining. At that moment was when we decided to put the karaoke on hold and move to the Pictionary.

There was eight of us last night, so we made two teams of four for the game. Actually one team had four, and the other one had 3,5: three girls and one of my friends who was all trashed, therefore the 0,5. The game was in Spanish and it had some very fucking hard words and a lot of fun shit happened. For example, I had to draw the word Torre Latinoamericana [Latin American Tower], which sounds difficult but was quite easy actually. First I draw two lines to let them know that it contained two words; then I draw a building and they found the first word [torre]; and then I draw the Latin American continent and those donkeys in my team weren't able to figure it out, could you believe it? They kept yelling Sur América!, but I draw the continent all the way up to the Río Grande to point out that it was ALL of it, therefore Latinoamérica. And if you put it together with the first word, then the answer was just as easy as stepping on a cockroach. But these Einteins kept yelling torre suramericana and after I told them, through my draw, that they were very fucking close to it. . . time ran out.

Surprisingly enough another harder line came suprisingly easy: Triángulo de las Bermudas. One of my teammates draw a triangle and we all shout "triángulo", and before he could draw anything else another friend yelled Triángulo de las Bermudas out of nowhere! OK, that was an easy one actually. Throughout the night we had words like velocidad [speed], hacer garabatos [scribble], aeropuerto, dolor de espalda [back ache], panal de abejas [honey comb], dormir [to sleep], puerta [door], hervir [to boil], dollar, cinturón de seguridad [seat belt], and so on.

But at the end my team got their asses kicked in a Grand finale that was nose to nose and looked like a Hollywood movie. My team got to the end first but when you roll the dice you have to get to the last spot with the exact number and win the last challenge, and we failed miserable to get those exact fucking numbers. But the other team arrived right to the end in their first try, which has a challenge where both teams have to draw. The final word was Religion and in a very contested and extremely fishy maneuver the other team yelled the answer before we could. That last leg of the game reminded me of how GWB got elected. . . don't want to say out loud that they cheated, but I'm sure they cheated.

I hate to get my ass kicked in those board games. And even more so because that was a struggle between women and men last night: we were four men in my team and the other team was three girls and my fucked up friend. I guess the rational explanation for them beating us is that we were over confident and thought that we had it; or perhaps they were just lucky; or maybe they really cheated. Anyway, for the record they won.

The excitement of the night came while we were in the early stages of the karaoke session. . . It arrived in the form of two round and I would venture to say a perfect pair of 34C boobs followed by a super-duper-cute brunette. My friends have a little boy and he's friends with that beautiful brunette's baby boy [of course she's married], and the kid was staying for the night. She came to check on her boy and stayed for about 5 minutes chatting with my friend's wife right at the entrance, while we tried to pretend that we were singing.

I thought for a moment that she was coming to stay and to sing with us and to play Pictionary and I had the whole night mapped and planned a second after she walked in. My usual shy self would morph into a more outgoing dude, my "one in a six billion" candid personality would do the trick and in twenty years we would be laughing about the early November night when we first met and when we fell for each other. That was before [and even after] seeing her three-carat wedding band. In a time span of less than a second I had my heart rate going sky high and my already high level of unused testosterone ~~got up~~ went even higher.

Once she left we grilled, I mean we literally grilled my friend's wife with all sort of questions about her and her whereabouts, and I even got upset 'cause WTF weren't we introduced to such a beautiful girl, ah?! Anyway she's married, has one kid, got ten thousand dollars worth of implants and lipo that makes her look like a million dollar babe, speaks Spanish, dances salsa and even though she's married to an American Prince, she secretly craves the company of a red haired Latino. hahaha, not really, but we got her whole biography including some stories of my friend when he saw her in a little tiny bikini by the swimming pool and that had us making all kind of manly comments and the girls their usual girly comments.

Now that I give it a second thought, I think I know why we loss in the game of Pictionary. . . I just couldn't get my mind out of her all night and I'm sure my friends couldn't either. Damn I can't believe we were such an easy pray! Maybe we should invite a big stud before the next game in order to mess up the girls' team. . . But as I said to them once they were done celebrating their victory: "En juego largo, siempre hay desquite" [In a long game, there's always time for revenge]. And last Saturday night was just the beginning. . .

The M-F Word

2005-11-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

It cracks me up when a girl uses the word motherfucker in a sentence.

It seriously does!

I Report, You Decide

2005-11-10T22:36:00.000-05:00

We just had elections here in NC. As far as I know people were voting for a new Major, City Council people and some referendum on only God knows what. I, as a responsible member of the community didn't vote; because I don't go to church and here in CLT you have to be register as a believer and you have to prove that you go to church every Sunday in order to be able to vote. Oh, and you have to be a US citizen, and I'm not.

But in the picture to your left you can see not only the old carpet in my room but the front page of the local rag, called "The Charlotte Observer". As it has more coupons, advertisement and classifieds than actual news, people refer to it as "The Charlotte Disturber", and is widely known that this so-called newspapers is good only for cleaning windows and wrapping dead fish.

The news are basically taken from Knight Reader's writers and from other mayor and a bit more serious newspaper like the Times, Post, and news services like the AP. But still, sometimes they get to actually write something about this town, perhaps interview someone and who knows, maybe even quote one of our fellow Southerners and post it in the front page! Hell yeah!, Rock 'n roll y'all!

Which is exactly what happen few days ago with the elections; and as you've noticed I've circled a little something to get your attention. But before giving you a zoom on the aforementioned quote, let point out the following:

a.- This was a local election;
b.- The election was for local officials;
c.- North Carolina is a State;
d.- The election was within the state;
e.- State election means local election in a geographical sense of the word;
f.- Word is a word, and world is also another word;
g.- As far as I know the world ain't flat;
h.- The world is a pretty damn big place;
i.- NC is a state
j.- A state within a country;
k.- A country called the US;
l.- There's a lot of countries in the world;
m.- There's actually more than fifty countries in the world;
n.- And less than 300;
ñ.- Charlotte is a city *gasp* I mean, a town;
o.- The world is the world;
p.- A state is a state;
q.- With the letter Q you can write cheese in Spanish
r.- No shit, you really can;
s.- And if you're gona appear in the front page of your local rag;
t.- Better come up with something interesting;
u.- Otherwise;
v.- Keep your thoughts for yourself;
w.- That's just a thought;
x.- I'm running out of letters
y.- YO!
z.- After I publish this I'm going to ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzzzzz

As I say, "I Report, You Decide": please check out this quote from the front page and tell me if I am not right when I ask the mirror every morning "WTF am I doing heeeeeeere?!!".

Naked

2005-11-10T20:29:00.000-05:00

That's how I felt today: naked.

Ever since I found out this morning, while walking towards my office building that I had forgotten my wallet at home, I felt naked.

I had to go back to my car to dig for a whole collection of quarters, nickels and dimes to pay for the parking space, good thing that I always throw all change in the ashtray; which by the way I don't fucking know why cars come equipped with such device: an ashtray. Everybody throws the cigarette butts out onto the street, as well as the ashes, because they don't want their cars smelling like ashtrays. Try stop smoking and poisoning everybody around you with those cancer sticks for starters; and if you're so helplessly addicted and there's nothing your sorry ass can do about it, trash your car and not the whole city. But more on cigarettes later [I hate cigarettes].

Back on the topic of this post: leaving my wallet at home. And the security guard in my office building.

I always carry my Speed Pass™ in my wallet, and even though you're suppose to hang it from your neck like warriors use to do it back in the days with ears cut off from their enemies, I always keep mine in my wallet. Every morning I have to remember to get my car keys, pen, wallet, cell phone, condoms [you never know], to shave, shower, pray the lord and read the Bible [hahaha], stop on red lights and go in green lights, make and drink my morning coffee, eat my very own blend of Corn Flakes and Musli with a diced apple in it, wear deodorant, feet powder and a couple drops of my colone, check my e-mails and read the news; and if on top of all that I have to remember to hang my Speed Pass™ from my neck, I'm sure one day my brain will short-circuit and I may end up wearing a condom to work.

An uninformed observer would say that there's nothing wrong with it, but let me give you an insight here. There is not, has never been, and there would never be enough One Hundred Dollars Bills printed on this planet and its surroundings to make me procreate with any of the females on my floor. I would cut my manhood off [palm tree, coconuts and all] and would put them in a jart like eunuchs use to do back in Imperial China times, before I use it with one of the females that work with me.

As I walk into the building, my brick-size cell phone in one hand, shirt freshly pressed, black shoes polished, a smile splashed across my face and testosterone going through the roof due to the lack of female companionship, I spot Earl, the security guard. Monsieur Earl is from some western African country [Nigeria would be my best guess] and he knows pretty much all the capitals in the world. We had an exchange few months ago and I was really surprised by his knowledge. Being the smartass that I am, I also know a good share of the world capitals, plus rivers, oceans, seas, lakes, peaks and stuff like that, but this guy was really good. He got all my questions right but one, the last one that I asked him; and I got almost all his questions right, but he kept asking me more [the bastard].

He was at a desk right by the entrance to the elevators, where you have to use your Speed Pass™ for the first time. So I approached him, we shoke hands, did some small talk, and I told him that I've forgotten my Speed Pass™, and that if he could let me in. He looked at me like if I was Osama Bin Laden's little brother, the black sheep of the family, the real bad one, the one voted in the yearbook as the more likely to end up blowing up shit; Earl sent me the kind of look that gives away all the possible suspicion a human being can come up with in a simple look. He then proceeds to ask me again what happen to the wallet and what was the relationship with my Security Pass [that's the technical name, but I like to call it Speed Pass™!]. "I just forgot that bitch at home man, let me in -was my very polite reply. He looked towards the front desk, where visitors get their daily Speed Passes™ and I felt he was an inch closer to tell me to go there and narrate the story to a real ape dressed as a security guard. But he ends up unlocking the middle gate, the one used by people with an extremely wide bone structure and who's ass could easily get stuck in any of the other narrower gates [in other words, all the fat people working in my building].

Once I pressed the up arrow on the screen and began my long wait for the fucking elevator, I started thinking what exactly went through Earl's mind when I asked him to let me in without my Speed Pass™. Did he think that I was gona torch down the place and that not wanting to leave any "paper trial" I had left my Speed Pass™ at home? Or that I had gotten fired the day before and I was gona take out as many co-workers as possible with my Victorinox knife?

I already made it once all the way to the front page of a newspaper, and if a second time comes, I hope it wouldn't be for something snapping inside me and going in a killing spree. When I was seventeen years old I was part of a one-year exchange student program and was sent to a little and miserable tiny town in Eastern Kentucky. That was the first time I set foot in the US. The news of a red haired boy from South America coming to town spreaded fast and a week after my arrival, my smiley face appeared in the front page of the local newspaper. Back in those days the only English words I was able to mumble were "helow", "haw'r yu", "zank yu" and "pie-pie"; but it didn't stop the overweight reporter from grilling me with a hundred questions and coming up with a loooong fucking article.

Maybe in Security Guard School they teach them not to say yes right away and to try to look like if they were really keeping the place secure. Even if is such a little thing like one of the "usual guys" forgetting his Speed Pass™. Besides if he would've told me to go talk to the other guys at the front desk, they would've asked me for my driver's license or a "valid photo ID" in order to give me a Speed Pass™ for the day and to have a record in case the place burns down and they need to identify a very sun tan red haired guy; but all my IDs were sitting, undisturbed, on my desk at home having the day off. So when I made it to my floor I decided not to go out for lunch later in the day but to ask for a favor *hugh* from one of my co-workers to bring me some sort of sandwich or whatever. If I had gone out, then I would've had to go to the desk and blahblahblah.

I'm actually thinking exactly what you're thinking: that this post is just a whole bunch of bullshit putted together on the simple fact that I forgot my wallet today.

Yes it is. Peace out!

Upset

2005-11-08T21:01:00.000-05:00

My stomach is a bit upset today, maybe was that stuffed chicken that I devoured for lunch and all that stuffing that came with it. No doubt that stuffing was a very colorful mix of all the stuff that the restaurant couldn't sell over the weekend and that it was either the trash can, or one lucky customer: me, in this case. But even though my stomach is upset, I'm not upset with them; actually I understand them, that was a very simple business decision, the dumpster or few more bucks. But shit, why me?!

My downstairs neighbor is not upset with me. . . yet. But I can sense that she'll soon be. Yesterday when I got home, she had her door open and even though she called me I pretended I didn't hear her. Somehow I could smell in the air not only that she'd been smoking those long narrow cigarettes of hers [Capri], but that she was gona try to go for the kill and ask me to baby sit her cat, nine lives and all while she's away. Today I didn't see her, but the cat was in her window checking me out as I came up the stairs. Perhaps my neighbor told him that I was the lucky one who was gona give him food, water and would clean his shit. Maybe the cat is analyzing me in order to find a way to make my live miserable; maybe he already knows how much I hate cockroaches and he'll have a whole family of them hungry and waiting for me.

My parents and my elder sister are upset with me. And it seems to me that everytime we talk, they find something to get upset for. This was gona be the topic of a long post, but I decided not to. Long and convulsive story very short: my sister is getting married and I'm not gona be able to make it to her wedding. She was gona tie the knot next year, but she followed my sarcastic comments that she better hurry up before her fiance finds out how much of a bitch she is and call off the event; so she decided to move the wedding to the day after tomorrow [or was it today maybe?]. I know, I'm such a bad brother. . . but relationships between siblings have to be based on understanding, patience and sharing like any other relationship in life, and my elder sister and moi never had much in common other than our last names. Plus is really impossible for me to go back in such a short notice due to my job, my VISA status. . . OK, I'm gona stop here. That's why I didn't want to write about this because it can easily take a lot of room. Summarizing: my parents and elder sister are upset with me [but not my younger sister, who's the one I really care for, so no big deal].

My family in law is upset with me; well sort of. Reason number one is the whole wedding thing and the fact that I am not gona appear in the family pictures, but that's just maybe 10% of the whole thing. The other 90% is the fact that I haven't been back to their church and that I'm definitely not going back there. They called me today to "chat" and by the way they asked me why I haven't been back to the church in the last two weeks, I could sense some tension in the air. I was honest to them and told them that two weeks ago I was terrible hungover after all the Halloween celebrations; and last Sunday I was busy either sleeping or blogging, or just staring at the ceiling. I could tell that they were "disappointed" with my answers but I was honest to them. I haven't told them that I consider that church and their rituals and their Bible study group and the singles group and all that stuff a complete waste of time for me, but confrontation would lead to nowhere with them. I'd rather prefer to tell them, little by little and surrounded by plenty of signs, that even though I am a nice guy I am definitely not church-material. But I know that I'm heading towards a confrontation there.

And I'm a bit upset with myself. . . for quite a few reasons. But the one at the heart of the situation is the fact that I still have to come to terms with myself on a lot of stuff. I still have to move from talking to action when it comes to accepting myself the way I am with the whole range of qualities and defects that I have. Lately, and little by little, I've been analyzing myself, the way I act and think, and I've reached some conclusions that need to be taken to the real world. The secret of happiness and perhaps the secret of life is to feel comfortable with yourself both physically and mentally, and I still have a lot of work to do in that department. OK, this is a fascinating topic [me! me! me!] but I'm gona cut it here, promising to write extensively about it in the near future [if I can stop procrastinating of course].

And I've saved the best for the last. I report, you decide. . .

While talking to my mom she came with a thousand reasons why I HAD to be at the wedding, being one of them the family pictures. You have to understand that my mom was raised in a very Aristocratic family in South America and she'd always thought that she comes from, and belongs to, a better family than everybody else, including even the nuclear family that she conceived. When she said that "how could that be" that I was not gona be in the pictures I told her not to worry, that she could e-mail them to me and I'd Photoshop myself into them. "You'd photo WHAT?!" -she said with a frustrated tone. "I'd photoshop myself into the pictures mom; that's an easy process and not a big deal".

That last line just send her through the roof, I'm sure. But believe me, I was being completely honest with her and really trying to find a solution to her concerns. I guess that was one of those good ideas that so often pop up in my mind but that end up being not that good at all. But don't tell me that it wasn't a very fucking good idea, wasn't it? Hell yes it was!