Girl Anachronicles

Prom never felt so right. Last night was the long-awaited Lost series finale. After years of Tuesday get-togethers at Pepe’s house, this would be the last official TV-crew gathering. Every Tuesday for the last few years we’d get together, bring popcorn, cupcakes, wine, beer, whiskey, chips, etc, and have a geek-out feast. We also did this for Battlestar Galactica and Heroes, but these series are long finished and gone (or have been horribly malformed! Sorry, Heroes!). Lost is the last of its kind, so this one finale brings with it a taste of sadness and nostalgia… much like prom, you’re saying good-bye to Lostie classmates.

So a number of friends, slightly more than the ordinary TV-crew, agreed to meet up for the last time at Pepe’s house. And, like we do in cases in which some of us are traveling from more or less the same area, a few of these friends decided to meet up at my house first so we could carpool to Pepe’s. This is where the fun starts.

First we had Cecilia (one of Eze’s coworkers, charming as a button) come to our house in dire need of a shower. She’s been camping out at the Río Piedras campus during the strike, so she had no cell phone to call us up and let us know she was there, so she proceeded to climb the condo’s fence and then call out Eze’s name like a madwoman. In the process she got a tear in her lovely sundress, and as soon as she came up laughing her head off (she was slightly drunk), I knew it was going to be an epic night.

We carpooled there: Cecilia, Lynnie, Josian, Katiuska, Eze & I, and when we got there, the house was already full! (as I used to say to my sister on those Saturdays of yore: “Caaaasa llena!”) We arrived with more than an hour to spare, so we did what we always do when there’s a lull or pause in our TV-watching activities: we ate and we drank, we sat outside to talk shit and smoke, etc… And then I see Ceci come out from the kitchen juggling three plastic cups full to the brim, and she offers me two (one for me, one for Lynnie). I think *Hey, that looks like a handful, I should help her out and grab those two in her left hand* … always follow your hunches. I went to grab one and the second one cascaded on me.

Oh, the contents? Calimocho: a delicious mix of Coca Cola and wine. Thankfully, the top I was wearing was red. Not so lucky that my pants were a beige-y tone of gray: now I had a map of burgundy continents down my legs. I walked in and headed to the bathroom, where I tried a few on-the-spot solutions for the wine stains: commercial spot removers, hand sanitizer, and ultimately took my pants off and washed them off with Ivory.  Suffice it to say, I spent the rest of the night wearing wet pants.

The Lost finale in itself: there’s not much I can say that hasn’t been said. The event has been a mediatic carnival: people have either loved or hated what happened there. The one thing that I can say without being biased: the series was 6 full years of buildup on a fan-base that was as hardcore as they get. People obsessed over the tiniest little details, and read into every single line uttered in that show. I think it would’ve been unreasonable to expect EVERY viewer to love the finale. So many expectations were on the line with those last 2.5 hours, that some of those had to fall through. Some people felt it was a cop-out (memories of likewise comments about BSG’s finale come to me). I think it was an unconventional happy ending in a time in which morbid cynicism is the expected norm, and that took guts. Lost shall be missed, to some extent as the compelling story we grew to love and obsess about, and then as the easy motive to gather around each week as a family to watch a narrative that gave us topics to pore over for hours and hours.

…however, why the FUCK can’t dogs go to heaven!? C’mon, Damon & Lindeloff! What gives!

Vincent, we will miss you!

He’s probably hanging out with BSG’s Jake in a place way cooler than the island or Jack’s heaven.

Getting mentally ready for the snip snip on Gallifrey’s balls. I was instructed to withdraw his food since 8pm tonight. That means withdrawing his food and Caprica’s food – and their water –  as well (Gallifrey is not a very discerning cat, he’ll eat dog food as happily as his own cat chow). The house feels a bit empty. Vero is at work and Eze is out and about recording for #EnProfundo. I think Caprica knows something is not right.

..she knows something's amiss..

I’m almost sure Caprica would go into a depression if Gallifrey ever went missing…

On another note, this is the new turn on things going on in the UPR strike:

The police of PR spending our dollar so well...

Students and other interested parties went to protest at the Sheraton Hotel. Governor Fortuño was holding an activity in this hotel in which people were paying $1000 per plate… this in a system in which we’re being told there’s not enough money to uphold a functional budget for the public university. Protesting students were approached by the riot police… and you know how these things go. Next thing we know, they’ll be heading towards Río Piedras campus…

Things are getting out of hand…

You know how appliances and cars have the very annoying tendency to break down just when you come across money? Well, my belongings apparently learned how to fucking read, and they must have found this blog post to be a sort of challenge.

My cell phone (an unnecessarily swanky Palm Pre) started acting up some days ago: it’s a touch-screen phone, and suddenly it started acting as if a thousand fingers were playing on it all at once. It started making calls and writing emails by itself. I was like thisclose to calling the Ghostbusters, but then I realized that a) they don’t cover electronics, and b) they’re fictional characters. So I did the next best thing today: after work, I took the Child of Poltergeist to its parents – the Sprint Store.

Sorry, lady, but our policy doesn't cover Palm products.

Vero rode along with me to keep me company and also to have her own Palm Pixi looked after (hers was a bit torn up by the usual tear and wear… well, “the usual tear and wear” by Vero). It was pouring by the time I got home to pick her up, and by the time we got to the Ponce de León Ave (where the Sprint store is), the streets were absolutely flooded. I drove on, confident that my teeny Toyota Echo would make the trip with no incidents.

We dropped our phones with the tech team and headed across the avenue to have lunch. By the time we were back, the bottoms of my pant legs were soaked and my sneakers were all squishy and mooshy inside (yuck! like walking on seaweed, nasty nasty, I don’t wanna feel like I’m Under the fucking Sea every time I take a step! those tennis shoes have GOT to go!). We got inside after taking some flak from a random guy about us smoking outside. Fortunately, Vero’s phone was fixable. Mine wasn’t. It had fucking RUST inside, the goddamned thing DID go and sing Under the fucking Sea with my tennis shoes apparently. They tell me it’s replaceable with a deductible of $100 I don’t fucking have.

So we get into the car and suddenly we’re trapped in a huge-ass traffic jam. Everywhere we turn, there are cars stopped like it’s freakin’ Christmas in Plaza las Américas (the centermost circle of HELL). I’m guessing it was an hour before we finally got home, but on our way there we find out the reason for the excess of traffic: a man got killed in a gas station smack in the middel of our route home. So, I took an alternate route, and just when I start picking up speed I realize: my brake pads broke. They most likely got water-logged while they were still hot and -POP!- they broke.

$100 for the cell phone, God-knows-how-much for the brake pads, WTF!?

Car! Cell phone! Goddamn you and your fucking opportunism. Go fuck your mothers.

Not my actual car. My car is dirtier and has a better personality

I hate you and I love you, but fuck you, phone

PS: Upon later remembrance, I realized my phone DID undergo some liquid distress. One drunken night, I dropped it on the ground and didn’t notice until half an hour later. It was a rainy night. It DEFINITELY sang Under the Sea with that pesky little lobster.

Go fuck a goat, Sebastian!

Han pasado ya casi 3 meses desde la última vez que escribí aquí. Está un poquito cafre empezar estas cosas así, pero hay que decirlo, tengo que decirlo, so pena de que se me quede nada adentro.

Algunas personas se ofendieron por mi post acerca de los hombres casados. No, vamos, algunas personas se ofendieron con el timing de mi post… Lo triste es que algunas de esas “algunas personas” eran personas cercanas a mí, y terminé cogiendo agüita a nombre de quien no valía la pena tener que cogerla. Me dejé amedrentar. Dejé que me metieran un miedo estupidísimo de escribir y herir sentimientos y sensibilidades.

Esta pendejá ya no pare máaaaaaaaas....

Tres meses son más que suficiente para dejar caer todo el peso de mi espalda y decir “YA BASTA”. Lo lindo de ese proceso es que ya una vez uno comienza a mandar a uno pa’l carajo, los manda a TODOS… o por lo menos a quienes se lo merecen. Es uno de esos procesos de cambio que antes los mistificaba, ahora simplemente me dejan atónita. Una nunca termina de conocerse, ah?

So … febrero. Hasta febrero 23, mi único trabajo había sido en la cueva de los góticos, el fabuloso, el inigualable, HOT TOPIXXXX!!!! (añada aquí manitos de metal y mucho eyeliner).

Un homenaje a mis queridísimos ex-clientes! Tan originales...

Más de un año metiéndole caña al asunto, haciendo un trabajo que estoy bastante segura que fue bueno, metiéndole “berraco”, como diría mi papá. Está un poco desalentador entonces que después de un año, nada pasa y te encuentras de nuevo en la posición de saltarle encima a las sobras de los horarios de los demás. Un año de meterle duro, y honestamente uno se cansa de fajarse y perder hasta la sanidad y dignidad mental para que no te dé siquiera para comer. Así que me tocó tragarme el orgullo y regresar a las oficinas.

En el 2008 juré – después de zapatearme de trabajar en el último círculo del infierno de informática – que NUNCA MÁS volvería a trabajar en una oficina. Me equivoqué un poco: debí haber dicho que NUNCA MÁS trabajaría en un puesto de informática. Era más accurate. En el 2010, después de un vuelo de regreso a casa más amargo que un tamarindo verde, decidí que era el momento de dejarme de mojonerías y buscarme un trabajo donde por lo menos, si me iban a pagar mierda, iba a ser mierda con la que pudiera contar. Así es que he terminado de regreso en el escritorio, vestida de muñequita semi-corporativa, atendiendo teléfonos y cobrándole a la gente. En verdad, no está tan jodido como estar metida en un cubículo jalándome las greñas porque no entiendo UNA PUÑETA DE SQL!!!! (ay, que lindo ser programador … not…)

Por qué carajos estudié esta mierdaaaaaaaa?!

Por un breve tiempo mantuve ambos trabajos, pero… no entremos en detalles, simplemente dejémoslo como que “me causa mucho estrés tener que estar del tingo al tango entre dos trabajos distintos” y que “me equipararon la suma de las horas en la oficina” … Le he cogido el gusto a revolcar la mierda, pero aún no me encanta que me caiga en la boca.

Así que con un trabajo que paga por lo menos una mesada regular, la llegada de un ingreso adicional a la casa ha sido la gota que colmó la contentura. Tenemos roommate nueva, y como dijera un amigo nuestro el otro día, “andamos de party todo el tiempo”. Aún cuando estamos apesta’os de la vida y odiando a la humanidad, lo increíble es que nos da con hacer eso los tres juntos en la sala. Definitivamente ha resultado ser un acuerdo sumamente especial y favorable para todo el mundo. Now my family is complete. El día que se nos case la nena :’( no sé qué vamos a hacer. Me va a dar empty nest syndrome a los fókin 40 años y sin haber parido, qué cojones.

Mira que estoy tan orgullosa de ella, que hasta a su primer sensor le saqué fotos.

También tengo el asunto de las clases – quiero decir! de la HUELGA – no, no, de las clases … whatever. El punto es que se supone que haya clases, no las hay, y eso me está poniendo los pelos de punta. Apoyo 100% la huelga, pero mi apoyo a ella no tiene nada que ver con el performance anxiety que me ha provocado ESPA4252 con la Prof. Luce López-Baralt. La cúspide – y a la vez liberación – de esa ansiedad hubiese sido una monografía que propuse y fue aceptada: un paralelo entre Don Quijote de la Mancha y The Neverending Story. Alucinante! Y aterrador! Y ahora que la huelga va para los 20 días, ya yo no sé qué va a pasar con la clase, con la profe, con la monografía ni con mi sanidad mental. Estoy que lo churreteo todo pa’l carajo y escribo un ensayo acerca del Gallito Polito. Colgá! El Gallito Polito no tiene nada que ver con Cervantes ni con el Siglo de Oro. De hecho, yo no sé quién es el Gallito Polito.

...jodío cabrón!

Aún así, la huelga también ha tenido su lado amable. Sirvió de catarsis, o por lo menos de punto afianzador para dos proyectos que me parecen “acojonantes” (estos españoles son la changa cuando se trata de describir cosas gufiás).

Está el podcast de En Profundo (unh?), que empezó con unos cuantos, y en el momento más alarmante, ocupó toda una esquina de nuestra barra favorita. Y yo usualmente me pego al corillo, y le llego, y me siento y me acomodo con ellos, y … no digo ni JI. Fucking ansiedad social…

Pero no me pasa lo mismo con el podcast de Kitty Kitty Dinosaur! (rawr rawr miau!), que como somos cuatro anormalitas hablando mierda, me siento en mi elemento… deberían chequearlo, btw, aunque sea simplemente por el ejercicio antropológico.

Aparte de estos dos proyectos, que han sido los más sólidos entre toda la ráfaga de actividad que ha habido recientemente, también intenté llevar a cabo un proyecto en el cual iba a dibujar algo todos los días por el espacio de un año. Mi musa es mi peor enemiga, eso te lo aseguro. La cabrona se fue de vacaciones a mitad de abril y me dejó puyúa.

…pero, como a mí no me gusta quedarme dá’, decidí que si no dibujo, no prob… coso. De nuevo. Y por lo menos esta vez voy con más ánimo. Lo que necesitaba era el descanso y reorganizar mi espacio. MUCH better, ahora que tengo un gaveterito rosa peptobismol con escarcha. Me siento más nena y to….

Y ahora esto… escribir de nuevo. Me hizo falta. Tanta emoción embotellada por dentro no ha sido saludable, y ya que estaba en las de soltarme como gabete (perdón! como “agujeta”), decidí darle un fuckit a toda la mala vibra que había permeado la idea de escribir aquí y finalmente HACERLO!

No quiero prometer que nunca más volverá a pasar, pero sí voy a hacer el intento de usar este espacio más a menudo, aunque sea para mariconerías mías.

Apropiármelo.

Porque sí, porque es MI espacio, y no el de más nadie para que decida qué le parece bien leer aquí y qué le parece mal. Se pueden cagar en sus lindas madrecitas como regalo tardío del Día de Hallmark si no les gusta el asunto, ok?

I confess I have dated married men before; three, to be exact. I am not one to generalize, but I have to say that every single fucking dude was exactly the same as the last. The stories might have been different, but they all work the same.

Now I see friends in similar conundrums. Ah-ah! Yeah, the guy might be “separated”, or maybe “not yet married” (living with a partner), but the mechanics work the same. My intention is to expose the inner workings of these men for these friends (and any other interested parties).

How it pans out

1) He might start slow and easy. A bit of flirting here, some friendliness, nothing you’d deem offensive or dangerous. He will mix in a few heart-to-heart talks, in which he will soulfully confess that he and his wife are not getting along anymore. He might even come as far as saying that they don’t sleep in the same bed anymore either. He will make a point of emphasizing how lonely he feels, and in the process he will make his wife look like a devilish bitch of huge proportions (he doesn’t even have to say it, you women will inevitably think it!)

The truth: He’s lying. If his wife were to hear the sludge that’s coming out of her husband’s mouth, she’d have a fit. For her, life at home is going on as normal. They may have noticed a bit of distance, maybe even him falling asleep on the couch while watching TV, or in the computer room (because poor baby has so much work!). They’d never think he’s “at the end of his rope”.

2) We women are fucking nurturers by nature. We see a living creature in agony and our first instinct is to pick it up and nurse it back to health. The married man knows this and he will become the helpless, poor animal just for you. Most will say that even if he’s felt very lonely, he’s never ever thought about cheating on his wife… until he met YOU: now YOU are all he thinks about, YOU are special, YOU are THE ONE making him reconsider. This flatters you to no end, and if you’re feeling lonely / unloved enough, you allow yourself to get involved.

The truth: He’s done this enough times to hone the craft. He sees you as someone vulnerable, someone who listens, someone who will give him the time, someone – in short – desperate enough to go to bed with him. You’re new blood, that’s all he craves: someone new in his bed. Why they crave this: I don’t know. Maybe they need to feel they “still got it”. Maybe it’s a pathological thing. In any case, girl, it’s not YOUR fault that he wants this all the fucking time. But it IS your fault if you fall for the line: “Oh, I’ve never done this before!”.

PS: Some will even be inane enough to add that they were virgins before getting married to their wives. Believe me! I had one like that.

3) So you get involved, and everything is beautiful: you make love until the wee hours of the morning. He tells you how beautiful you are, how much you two connect, how you make him forget about his problems at home. You date surreptitiously, sometimes in great fear that people will find out. This fear will be doubled if he’s a coworker. However, he makes a point of sharing things other than a bed with you: he takes you to hidden places, creates an environment that will be special and memorable for you. He turns into “the guy you’d share your life with”.

The truth: They need you to fall all the way head over heels for them. They need you to be all there for them, and it makes sense: if their plan is to string you along as long as they please, they should have you hooked, line and sinker! So this is it: they’re assuring your unconditional surrender to their being. They’re showing you how “awesome” they can be, securing your selfless adoration for their consumption later on.

4) At this point, two things might happen: he separates from his wife for real (less likely) or your relationship with him turns into an official affair.

If it’s an affair that it turns into: eventually, like all relationships, this one turns into a routine. Gone are the magical days of doing things other than stealthy visits no-longer-than-long-enough-to-fuck. You start getting depressed, and obviously you make demands, because 1 hour a week just to fuck is not enough for you to go on! You need some tender loving care. Thing is, you’re already hooked with this guy, and for every three or four months of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol, he will feed you a night of wondrousness, something to keep your hopes up that “things will someday change”. He also feeds these hopes with snide comments about things his wife says or does. However, he will never take the offensive in leaving her because: she’s too sick / the children / she wouldn’t be able to survive without him.

The truth: You’ve become his masturbator, and he won’t leave his wife because he doesn’t love you enough – and face it, he still loves her. This thing is just a symptom of his sickness. He might love you like a child loves his toy, but believe me: the moment you opened your legs to him, he lost all respect for you (I know this because one of the married men I dated was candid enough to confess this upon our breakup … charming!) To sum it up: he believes you’re not, and will never be, marrying material … because you’re “one of those girls that sleeps with married men”.

If he leaves his wife: you will think you’ve got it made. Believe me, it’s a celebratory feeling! You feel like you’ve actually got a shot to a normal relationship in the open! Love has finally arrived to you! Of course, he says, you can’t simply start dating normally, not yet. Not until the divorce is final. You don’t want him being sued by his wife for adultery, do you?

The truth: He finally found the perfect excuse to move out. These episodes are akin to midlife crises. They feel the need to live the bachelorhood they never had. They may have been virgins when they married (though I doubt it), but I’m sure these guys got married very young and never had a shot at fucking it up. So what they’re doing: finally, they’re able to fuck it up! And they’ll fuck it up with YOU! So, you’ll eventually find out he’s fucking around with other girls, or – like it happened to me – he’ll become chickenshit and confess to you that he still cares for his wife, that he misses her. Some very daring assholes will even go for both!

On the breakup

They won’t like it, invariably, not a single one of them will like it. They will make you feel guilty about dating them, they will play the SORRY card, they will threaten you (“I’ll kill myself” comes to mind). In any case, they will not go silently or peacefully. Some women will stand their ground, but most will have a relapse or two (or ten, in my case). For you: it’s a relationship that’s being broken, you feel that you’re tossing away an opportunity at being loved. For them: their toy is getting feet and walking away from them. Obviously, they will do all in their power for you to stay. Some will be forceful, some will be subtle. None will understand the need for you to keep your fucking dignity, to be loved like a human being, to be respected.

My advice: Don’t even begin an affair with a married man. It’s not because of “the sanctity of marriage” (those that know me well know I don’t believe in that). It’s because you’re getting into a situation with 2 people. Doesn’t make sense? You see: your relationship with this man is pretty much the direct result of his relationship with his wife. All you do or say will be in direct contrast with her (albeit what she does or say stands by itself, that’s the Wife Privilege). The way he reacts at you? Total reflection of how it is with his wife. Not to say he treats you the same, he treats you like he wouldn’t treat her: like a sex object, like a plaything, like a whore. He will say things to you that he would never tell his wife, he will do things to you that he would NEVER do to his wife …

…and you know what? If he “confides” so much in you, but can’t bring himself to confide in the woman he chose to be his life partner… doesn’t that speak volumes of who he is as a man? A man who can’t see his wife as a peer? A man who cannot show her his true colors? This is a man that holds women in such low regard, he can’t even see them as beings worthy of dignity and a voice. Do YOU want a guy like this to be YOUR life partner?

Think about it… you may think you’re not lonely when you’re with a married man, but truth be told, you’ve become the loneliest of them all.