Girl Anachronicles

The FIFA World Cup… I remember the first time I was aware of this magnificent sporting event in 1998: I was hanging around in my house (I lived with Dad back then), and I suddenly heard a big commotion erupting from his room. This was unusual because my father and his wife are usually pretty quiet when left to their own. I popped my head in and saw them laying on their bed, side by side, with big grins and luminous eyes. I had to ask. What they answered: “¡La copa mundial, niña!”. I didn’t sit to watch in 1998, but I came around to doing this in 2002, and I was hooked. The rush from the crowd, the orgasmic celebration whenever a goal was made, the noise, the music, the cheering … it was like a huge party being celebrated around a sporting event… way more exciting than any other sporting event. Mind you, I’m no fan of sports, but I’m a fan of excitement, so this was attractive to me.

..and I will never forget Ronaldo's haircut. WTF, dude?!..

This year, the World Cup is being held in South Africa. All’s been excitement as it usually is with one small particular variation that’s caught the attention of everyone watching: the vuvuzela. The first instance I heard a mention of it was a complaint from one viewer who was way beyond annoyed by the constant sound of the vuvuzelas. Apparently, everyone and their mother has a vuvuzela at the World Cup, and everyone seems to be blowing their own at the same time. I wonder how many idiots have passed out from blowing their vuvuzelas too hard or too long. It also makes me happy that so many healthy lungs are running around in this globe.

Sopla ese cuerno, marafaca!

During the first match I was able to watch this year, I was wondering what the vuvuzela would sound like. I had heard it was a major disruption on the transmission, that it was an unbearable noise that couldn’t be put in the background. I waited for it … and I waited … and then I realized: “…wait, what’s that hum-drum noise on the background? Is that an airplane?” I watched a whole match without asking … and then it dawned on me: “Oh! The vuvuzelas!”

Best. Facebook. Group. Ever!

It wasn’t intolerable, it wasn’t painful to hear … it was just… like an airplane. And hey! I LOVE airplanes! I love the noise an airplane makes when they take off. So, it comes to bear that I also like the sound of vuvuzelas.

Today, I kept thinking about that, mainly because so many people keep making such a big deal out of the vuvuzelas. I realized that I tend to like these kinds of noise: engines, sirens (well, when I’m not trying to talk on the phone), airplanes, noise music, oscillators … vuvuzelas. What is it in my head that makes me like cacophony? I don’t know, but it even excites me at times. I guess it has something to do with the inner ear.

… and I have to admit that even the noise of gunfire, although knowing the dangers that it entails makes it all the more horrid to me. The beauty of the thunder, the terror of lightning.

Hay de cosas innecesarias en esta vida: conferencias de prensa por un temblorcito de 6 segundos, nombramientos ridículos a un centro de convenciones brand new, pop-ups de publicidad que te invaden la pantalla completa cuando vas a visitar el periódico online…

…y otro “Reencuentro” … KA$$$HING!

Cambiando chavos por dignidad...

Estos pendejos van a hacer OOOOOTRO “reencuentro” más. La gira comienza el 5 de junio, vi el poster esta mañana en una parada de guagua y por poco me da un ataque de vomitera-chiquita (“I threw up a little in my mouth”). Porque, la pregunta es:

¿Cuántos hijoeputas reencuentros tienen que hacer estos maricones?!!!

Lo triste del caso es que existe un demográfico bastante nutrido, pudiente e insoportable que todavía se moja los pantis a la vista de la cara de papa de Ray. Ew… Mientras las mujeres no se enteren que ya Menudo pasó y que está un chin triste seguir pagando billetes altos pa ir a bailar al son de “Cámbiale las pilas a tu vida” (a cambio de dejar de pagar el agua, la luz o el celular … del marido … con los chavos que él le dio pa que ella hiciera el pago … hay mujeres cabronas, sa’e!)… pues mientras ese demográfico no se entere de lo patético del asunto, seguirán sucediendo “reencuentros” innecesarios …

Clajemielda!

... arroz y habichuelas ...

Food is always an issue in my household: Eze likes his rice & beans, pork chops and viandas; I don’t. I’m usually met with incredulous faces (complete with gaping mouths and wide eyes) when I admit that I don’t like rice & beans at all. If you’re boricua, you have to like rice & beans, sancocho, pasteles… in a case like mine, the kindest of remarks is that I’m “fussy with food”. I’ve even been told that I wrongfully believe that I’m not boricua (“te crees europea, es?”). I’ve tried by all means to understand why it is that there’s food that everyone seems to love that I don’t like at all: this is important to me becase most of that food is the food my husband loves, the food that is served at his parents’ house table. The easiest conclusion achieved is that I was brought up on an “American menu” (a.k.a. hamburgers, hot dogs, mac & cheese), but that is only partly right. I think I finally understood why it is much more complex than that…

Comfort food

(n) Defined as food that gives emotional comfort to the one eating it, these tend to be favorite foods of childhood, or linked to a person, place or time with which the food has a positive association.

For most people around me, such things as rice & beans, pork chops, bacalao, etc are associated with positive and happy times around the table with the family: the warm and loving mom that cooked this for you is the one handing you the plate with a smile. There’s no trauma to eating a plateful of rice & beans, right?

Well, in my case, I wasn’t so lucky to be born liking rice & beans, and the earliest memory I have of that dish is my Mom snarling at me to eat it all. Beans taste to me like force-feeding. It’s not comforting at all. I’m pretty sure these incidents were not daily occurrences: my mom also cooked mashed potatoes with hot dogs, cordon bleu, etc… these were the foods I associated with good times: sharing a chicken cordon bleu piece with my father … yeah, eating most of it because I didn’t like my own dish …

Comfort food for me? Sweet dinner rolls with butter, with a side of slices of salchichón. Instant mashed potatoes with chopped salchichas mixed in. Serrano ham with fried cheese balls. Arabian desserts. My grandmother’s turkey and relleno (potatoes, eggs, onions, almonds, raisins). Mom’s ground beef with rice. Colombian or Venezuelan arepas. Braunschweiger. It wasn’t so much what food I had most often, it was the food that I came to associate with happiness

Some things, I’ve learned to love as an adult: peppers, roquefort cheese, onions, cauliflowers, some viandas. Others, like rice & beans or string beans (or lima beans, or any kind of beans,except refried – because they’ve been killed and mashed) I associate immediately with frustration and almost being sick at the table …

So, dear loved ones: stop insisting on the rice & beans. It.Makes.Me.Sick. (and eating it certainly feels like a chore)

Thank you.

I just got home from a failed attempt at penetrating the biggest mall in this island (Plaza las Américas, of course, the center of everyyyything). I wanted to get a rare orchid for my mother: it was an dark purple plant with leaves that slightly shimmered as if gold dust had been sprinkled on them, a beauty! But it was an EPIC FAIL, mainly because I couldn’t even get a parking spot.

At 11:30, Plaza las Américas was already bursting with traffic that complied with X-mas-grade expectations. People were “hunting” after more intelligent shoppers that were already done and leaving Hell. It felt like trying to get your own buffalo among a tribe of seasoned huntsmen: intimidating, tiresome, frustrating. I gave up after half an hour, called Mom to let her know she would get her gift a bit later than most, got the distinct flavor of disappointment in the tone of her response… which got me thinking …

If I’ve forsaken St. Valentine’s because – REALLY! – why would I want to celebrate my own relationships at tandem with the rest of the world? … then, why do I subject myself to the imposition of a fucking Hallmark holiday to celebrate my love for my own mother the same freaking day everyone else does? Why do we – the same ones that have successfully unshackled ourselves from the obligatory X-mas, St. Valentine’s, and other miscellaneous fabricated festivities – insist on behaving like brainless sheep only for our own mothers’ sakes? Is our love for our mothers so generic that we agree on celebrating it like most other people do?

And in the case of people like me, people whose mothers insist on celebrating all things Hallmark-Lifetime-Precious Moments: why do we cave in anyways? Why do we agree on giving the goddamned holiday the importance it doesn’t deserve?

It’s a holiday – like most others – in which, at  the best of cases, it creates a conundrum in couples and other composite families as to where to spend the day, and for how much amount of time. In the worst of cases, it creates chaos, destruction and death (yes, a bit exaggerated, but not all that off). I’m starting to think holidays are not the best idea when it comes to spending time with your family. It’s usually a bit of a stressful time, and it’s best to stay away from them all and keep sanity levels all around.

Maybe next year, I’ll let them know well before time that I won’t keep bowing to Evil Hallmark and its cheesy ways.

Totally appropriate Mother's Day card from SomeEcards.com

Hace unos cuantos días tuve una de las experiencias más raras de mi adultez sedentaria: la noche del pasado martes me acosté a dormir, y el sueño nunca me llegó. Casualmente, me tocaba levantarme a las 5 AM del miércoles para llevar a mi hermano al aeropuerto. Nunca pude dormirme completamente, así que a las 5:00 me levanté sin mucho trabajo, me vestí, y fui a completar la diligencia de Taxi para mi hermano. Regresé a casa cerca de las 6:00 AM y, en vez de volver a intentar tomar el sueño, me senté a terminar de redactar un trabajo que tenía que entregar el día después (jueves) en la clase de Siglo de Oro: un resumen – no muy resumido, no muy detallado – de los 4 capítulos de trasfondo histórico de la España de los siglos IX al XVI  más completos, analíticos, fascinantes y pesados que he leído en mi vida. Terminé la redacción básica cerca de las 7 AM, me acosté por dos horas (dos horas que ni sentí pasar, de lo muerta del cansancio que estaba), y me volvía a levantar a las 9 para desayunar y continuar el trabajo.

A las 11:00 AM retomé la tarea, ahora de pasar a computadora todo el trabajo, descanso de 3:30 PM a 4, para entonces continuar con la corrección de la redacción final hasta las 5:00 PM. En un día de insomnio, en una nube de fatiga intelectual y física, logré parir 14 páginas de propias palabras acerca de la historia de España. De más está decir que me le cagué en la madre a moros, cristianos, judíos … a la españolidad en general.

Nunca pude volverme a siestar, el cansancio era demasiado: terminé acompañando al corillo a ver Lost y el subsiguiente noticiero climatológico (el excelente capsulón de OneCaribbeanWeather.com, necesitas droga para poder apreciar al fabuloso ancla con su lorito vestido de camisita hawaiiana empotrado en el hombro). Todo lo ví a través del lente de la insomnia: parece una nota química, y probablemente lo sea, si se ve desde el punto de vista de lo que pasa química y molecularmente en el cerebro cuando uno está privado de un descanso apropiado. No me molestó tampoco, es el costo de ser estudiante, y lo pago con gusto por estudiar lo que estoy estudiando.

Esta noche ya he intentado por una hora y media agarrar el sueño, no he podido. Acaso esta modalidad nueva de patrones interrumpidos del sueño es algo típico del que no lleva una rutina oficinesca? El insomnio es cosa de estudiantes? O es cosa de viejos?

En todo caso, muy pintoresco de mi parte andar por la casa como espíritu chocarrero a las 4 de la mañana, sin poder conciliar el sueño, con el estómago hecho trizas (efectos secundarios de la ansiedad, supongo yo) … y como evidencia esto, encontrando la musa para escribir algo que no sea a punta de rabia y encojonamiento, sino el producto de una seria confusión.

Buenas noches!