Breathe

New Life, New Blogs

2010-08-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

There have been many changes in my life throughout the life of this blog. A lot can happen in 5 years.

But, I figure, with these changes, something's gotta give.....and really, I just need to start writing again. So I have two new blog efforts. Another personal blog by the same name on another domain (though, I haven't regularly started posting yet): http://carotorres.wordpress.com/

I've put all of my blogging energy on getting my other blog off the ground, and it will take a lot to do so: http://nobeautycompares.wordpress.com/

It's a Marian blog focused on glorifying God through images, testimonies, ideas, prayers, poems, (anything in praise that has touched someone) with a special emphasis on devotion to Mary and the the grace bestowed upon her as the Mother of God.

It's a bit a of hefty project, as it is not my own. I will, of course, be weighing in with my devotion and love for Mary and things that I do, read, pray, and see. But, most of all, I want it to serve as an outlet for people's further reflection, education, devotion, and love of Mary and glorifying God. I want people to submit their own images, prayer, testimonies, thoughts, essays, anything the see or encounter that moves them. The email to submit is: nobeautycompares@gmail.com

I'm hoping (and praying) to be able to get the word out and really get participation from online community one day. Any help you can provide whether it be by submissions or getting the word out and encouraging others will be deeply appreciated.

It should also be pointed out, that I'm not limiting it to Marian posts, as anything in praise and aimed to bringing glory to God is absolutely welcome, but due to my particularly love and devotion, Mary is our emphasis and guide to the heart of Jesus. =)

So get to it! http://nobeautycompares.wordpress.com/

God bless!

Love is within the Lord's eternal past

outlet for your further reflection, education, devotion, and love of Mary and glorifying our Lord.

When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

2010-04-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

["How He Loves Us"/ Kim Walker]

"Live Within Love"

I am not the victim the Enemy made me believe that I was. I am not reduced. I am not ugly. I do not contribute to my own sorrow.

The Enemy made me believe that I amounted to the worth of the trials and negativity that I encountered.

You gave me the gift of presence. I can effect the positivity that You created me to effect.

Unfortunately, I hid it. I polluted it. In which the Enemy and his forces that work in others delighted. This led me to ignore You. This led me to believe the pollution, even several times in the face of You, Lord.

But God, you work. You are the most persistent. Your love is the everlasting. Yours is the love that is meant to reign in our hearts.

God, You sent and maintained a select few. A few that refused to acknowledge the Enemy's pollution. A few that did not delight in the self-reinforced contamination that I tried to put forth.

And when You knew it was right, when You knew I had no recourse but to listen with an open heart; You showed me the pollution I allowed to be placed upon and mask my heart. Mask my good.

I knew that was not of me. I am of You. I am of love. I took that contamination and decided to let it go in favor of Your love.

I have invited You in. I have welcomed You into my heart. You have risen to my request to heal the damaged corners and weakened columns that you worked to uphold all along.

There You have made a home. In that home You grow Your love. You, strengthened by myself. You, strengthened by my faith. You, unscathed and pure, Lord.

And I realize, now, that if those few, Your few, could see You within me, when I chose to ignore, what is possible now that I believe? What is possible now that I live, grow, nurture, and cherish You, as You always did me?

You are possible.

I worship You. I live You. I love You, Lord.

Thank You.

Love, Your daughter,

Carolina

Post Scriptum:
Be mindful, my friends, that you are only as unhappy as you believe yourself to be. But your good is limitless, because your good is of God.

Go to the Ends of the Earth for You, to Make You Feel My Love

2010-03-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

["Make you Feel My Love"/ Bob Dylan]

I left my apartment, struggling to get my umbrella open. There was no use in doing my hair this morning, given the ridiculous weather, so I walked-on with my curly hair slicked back in a high bun. Finally getting my umbrella open, I pressed play on my iPod in my pocket; Adele told me she was about to begin singing a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love”, while introducing her “keys player”. “When the rain is blowing in your face….I could offer you a warm embrace/ To make you feel my love….” tears began to well up in my eyes as she softly sang to me about affirming her love to someone and I thought of doing the same, and of my feelings the night before.

That was it. My life had become some soul-searching 20-something-girl-in-the-big-city movie. As I walked in the rain, holding a black umbrella, dressed in a trench coat, hopping over puddles in my heeled booties, listening to a sad love song as I fought tears welling up in my eyes. Great.

I walked down into the train, which, thankfully came quickly and sat down in the first seat I saw, not a difficult task, since it was an empty train…few people take the train from this deep in Brooklyn; we’re not cool enough yet, despite what my rent suggests.

I closed my eyes and put Adele on repeat. Every time she began again, I heard another line a little louder and a little clearer. Though every single time I mouthed “But I would never do you wrong”, and every single time I did that, my closed eyelids fluttered, and my lip and eyebrow momentarily tensed as a felt a flush of heat rush over my face and moisture fill my eyes. I felt heavy and sad. I imagined myself small, and then large, my fingers felt heavy and swollen around my iPod, my head sagged lower under its own weight.

I opened my eyes, a few more tears fell; I trained them downward along with my head, hiding within the crowded L train. If I don’t see them, they can’t see me, right? I saw shoes, legs, coats, and a purple woven bag in front of me. The bag reminded of something one would find on Olvera street. I closed my eyes again and thought of last night.

I hung up the phone and was upset. I didn’t know what to do and I was confused and sad that what I was doing, all my own truth and self, wasn’t enough to help me and help this situation. I began to cry. I decided that sleep was the only thing I could do with myself, even if it was 10pm. But first, I wanted to pray a rosary. I needed to pray a rosary.

I looked up the Joyful Mysteries, as despite growing up praying the rosary with my grandparents and family, I still don’t know mysteries by heart, but I will. I lifted my grandmother’s rosary off the wall, asking for her help as well; I sat down on my bed and began amongst tears. As I continued, I soon stopped my sobs, breathed, and felt each word come out of my mouth, contemplating Mary, imagining Mary, giving my mind and heart to Mary for that moment.

I ended with my own prayer asking for the Virgin and God’s help and guidance. I needed their help in my confusion, I knew that I was enough and I was trying in every way to show that, but I needed their help to have that be seen, I asked for their help. I needed to know what to do. I lay back, under my covers, praying and thinking. I fell asleep holding my rosary.

I held Her image in my head as I opened my eyes on the train. I felt less heavy than before, but couldn’t shake my sadness, or my tears. I noticed a gesture in front of me; it was actually shaking toward me. I looked up and saw a short tan-skinned woman, one arm around her purple woven bag, the other, holding out a small pack of tissues toward me. I felt both embarrassed and comforted as I grabbed the packet, unfolded a tissue and handed it back to the woman, mouthing “Thank You” to her.

The tissue barely made it to cover my face before I began to cry harder. I relaxed my face, removed the tissue and dried my eyes and sniffled nose. I looked up at the woman; her eyes were closed, as if in mediation or prayer. She was middle-aged with her hair pulled back, and she wore purple blown-glass earrings that almost matched the bag she had one arm folded around. I, too, closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, she leaned into me and began speaking to me, I quickly removed Adele from my ear as she said, “Whatever it is, it will be okay.”

I looked at her, and thanked her, again, while replacing my headphone. I closed my eyes to my tears and began to think and pray. I told myself it would be okay; there was no reason why it wouldn’t be, right? Though, even while I tried to convince myself of this, those thoughts that it wouldn’t be crept in along the sides of my own resolve.

I opened my eyes again, glanced up to see where we were, three more stops until I was supposed to get off.

The woman looked at me and leaned in, again. I removed my headphone, again. She whispered in my ear while lightly squeezing my shoulder, “I wanted to tell you this before, but hand your burden over to God, he will take care of you.”

I gasped, nodded, and thanked her. She gave me an airy smile as she disappeared within the crowd and got off the train.

By the time I caught my breath, cleared my tears, and remembered where I was, it was time for me to get off the train.

I walked up the staircase in the train station and all I could think was that “God will take care of me” and that “I am okay.”

God is with me, as He is with you. We will be okay. Everyone should know this. Everyone should feel His love.

I'm going to try and continue doing this more often, but I absolutely needed to share this story.

Love is all that exists when you decide to listen

And everywhere I go, There's always something to remind me, Of another place and time Where love that travelled far had found me.

2009-04-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

( "Remind Me"/ Royksopp)

So I'm sitting here in what is supposed to be my last Monday of class as an undergrad at the University of Southern California, and I can't handle it. I sat in Starbucks this morning, drinking coffee, reading, and bbming, and it hadn't hit me. I waited on the corner of Jefferson and Hoover to cross the street and just began to think about how I wanted to be on a subway. I suddenly wanted a commute. I missed it. I love sitting on the bus and train in the morning and in the evening. It's the perfect time to myself and perfect points of the day. I love it because once you're on the train or the bus, there's nothing else you can do, the commute is now out of your power and all you can do is sit and think and listen to music I'm usually a little late for everything, but once I sit down on the bus I'm relieved, because that's the best I can do in that moment and I almost never get the feeling.

If not Today, Easter will come

2009-04-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

(Father Fred, Easter homily)

SO, i realize in my previous post I forgot to mention my new and recent obsession with the West Wing. This a very impotent detail in life right now, as this show is effin amazing. I had honestly never even seen an episode in my life until about two weeks ago, and i'm not sure how this happened. If you have not seen West Wing, and you enjoy quick-paced, intelligent, politically relevant discussion & exchanges, I highly recommend you watch this show.

I don't have anything to say other than to declare my love for West Wing in a public setting outside of twitter, so I'm going to default to talking about POTATOES. Now, yes, lent is over but only by two weeks, and I'm still in my potato-rediscovery phase, as i don't very often cook potatoes for myself at my apartment, i pretty much go for the simplest items possible: sandwiches, pasta, platanos, and sometimes rice, as far as starches go.I don't eat enough myself in order to justify the effort it takes to make a lot of things, including potatoes. There certainly are days when I nuts and make rice, beans, meat, and salad, but i honestly don't foresee myself doing this in the coming weeks until i move out, so whatever. anyway, potatoes. Today, after class, which I'm in right now, I will be going to the 2-9 with my bff roommate for burgers, and, most importantly, SWEET POTATO FRIES. I am very excited about this, as it will be my first order of sweet potato since january or february. I did very well, my lost readers, I never touched a single potato during lent, even when faced with potato salads, soups, chips, and french fries. I'm glad i was able to keep that up, even if i was made of fail in terms of bog updates. we'll work on it.

I'm Currently sitting in my penult wednesday of classes, the specific class being PPD 358 Urban and Regional Economics, one of my "for funsie" elective senior spring classes, my other is my next class, Drawing 101. Other electives I have taken was Art History 499 Art of the Prado Museum, last semester while in Madrid, and Journalism 499 Latinos in News Media, my freshman year. I need to get better at choosing electives as the only one of the classes that has been pure fun was the Art History class, and that was only because i was in Spain and the class was physically held in the Prado. The teacher also happened to be one of the best I'd ever had while at USC. I went to go see my Jour 499 professor from freshman year yesterday and he was so nie and showered me with compliments praising my talent and intelligence, saying that I would certainly get a job at some point because of it. I hope he was right, from his mouth to God's ears, otherwise it's always nice to hear such things, especially right now, from someone that knew me 3 years ago. Drawing 101 is not so fun, because i mentally cannot focus on anything for 3 hours straight, twce a week, especially ONE THING, ONE DRAWING. I go moderately insane in the during of that class. I thought it would be good for me, you know teach me how to focus better, be more detail oriented, but no. I don't like it. I'm also not very good. My econ class is surely interesting, different from what I expected, but still falls pretty safely within my wide scope of interest being that I'm obsessed with Urban Structure, culture, and classes, and recently fascinated by economic policy and practice.

otherwise I am absolutely BAFFLED by the passing-by of this semester and I'm not too happy about having to take 3 exam finals, wth??

love is Jed Bartlet

By and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity

2009-04-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

("Kokomo"/ Beach Boys)

SO WHAT IS UP, GUYS!?

i know i did a really good job with the whole "posting everyday during lent" thing. really awesome, diiidn't even last a week. I'm really proud, as you should be too. but i tell you, i did NOT eat ANY potatoes.....and that counts for something.

I'm also doing a really good job at work right now. Not doing anything, I don't know where the mics are, nor do i really feel like learning, i just started and will son be ending this gig, so i'll just sit here and look pretty and work the lights and screen whenever i'm supposed to. We're watching a little video thing in honor of Warren Beatty who is coming to speak tonight.

I work with two other girls one is a senior and one is freshman. To be honest I couldn't tell you their names if you asked me, and I feel a little bad about that, but I'm not entirely positive that they know mine either. They're nice enough, but I find the freshman nicer than the senior....which I guess i could expect. The senior got engaged about two weeks ago and I overheard the story of how she was proposed to, but i don't entirely remember what happened, it seems really cute though, nothing amazingly original, but certainly sweet. The day that I met her, i saw her earlier in the day, before meeting her, and made a mental comment on what an unfortunate skirt/shirt combination she'd chosen to wear out in the world that day. She spends the majority of her time here at work refreshing her twitter and browsing Perez Hilton and some other gossip site that I am not familiar with. Never ONTD, which is my preferred internet celebrity gossip outlet. I don't think she owns actual shoes, though that's not really necessary in California and she has yet to wear her curly black hair in any style other than an indiscriminate bun well-settled on top of her head. She knows everything about how things function here in the booth and she's the one that actually does everything. She, also, has a tattoo of a snowflake on her foot, and of a treble clef on her right wrist. I really like both of these tattoos in subject and placement and I think that she would probably be a good person to hang out with every once and a while. Like if i went over to a friend's place to hang out one evening and she were part of the group of friends that were there, that could work.

The freshman makes me realize that there is a really big difference between people born in then 1980s and the 1990s. she never knows who any of the guests we have in class are, and then when i question other cousins of my mine born in the 90s, neither do they. I MOST DEFINITELY knew who Maria Shriver and Warren Beatty (two people that they did not know) were when i was their age, which was only a few years ago. I'm afraid to ask them if they know who John F. Kennedy Jr is (well, was). I became obsessed with him when i was 9 and he opened the Oprah fall season that year, introducing his George magazine with Cindy Crawford dresses as george Washington on the cover. sigh. Anyway, as I mentioned, I do find the Freshman to be more accessible, which I think could be chalked up to the fact that,w el, she's a freshman, and there is always that little bright-eyed bushy-tailed feel to them. On my first day another girl who works here, who's name i DO know, exclaimed, "---- you are always SO stylish and put together", upon seeing freshman. I have yet to be wowed by her style choices, although today I do like her shoes. They're from Urban Outiftters, as is her dress, i believe. If "urban outfitter" hipster-indie fashion is what constitutes as "so stylish and put together" then i don't think i'm going to be all too impressed. I'm not saying that I'M "so stylish and put together" because i'm not, but I have been told have a particular type of style, which i'm also not sure what kind it is. But our freshman is as stylish and relevant as one could be when they're from Fresno. I don't know a lot about this place, but I'm almost positive it is everything that I would imagine it to be: small-to-medium conservative city in the middle of California where edgey is shied-away from (although, i'm still unsure of what the word "edgey" really refers to, but i'm almost positive it has to do with urban culture) and the community relishes in being the "largest-city" in the region. it could be whatever it is, but that image will remain in my mind. Freshman is a liberal girl from a conservative middle-of-nowhere culture, which a lot of times more likely means that she's a moderate girl that is fascinated by the idea of diversity and gay culture, it's "cool", as along as this fascination is coupled with open-mindedness in crunch. She works the cameras and sometimes preps mics when the senior can't do it. She obviously knows more than I do at work, but she's worked in this department longer than me, so that's really not an issue in my mind.

to them i am probably the random girl that our boss decided to hire at the end of the semester and has never worked in the booth, but knows all the other bosses. i have sporadic style and have an odd handle on pop culture and random facts. i have a computer than i'm usually on (like them) and have a blackberry that I'm usually simultaneously on. I don't talk very much, only sometimes jumping in on conversation, rarely initiating the exchanges. i always bring water and sit by the light and screen buttons, so that's what i do. i twirl my hair whenever I'm not working or typing. I am also a senior.

oh the assumptions we make about people from the little we know. it's one of my favorite things to note and the revisit as more information is gathered.

love is what we think but never say

"If you don't want a wild one, quit hangin' 'round with me, you knew right from the start, that's my personality"

2009-02-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

("Wild one"/Those Darlins)

I never noticed these flowers until I picked them to adorn my grandmother's casket the day we buried her in December. And now, I see them everywhere. Funny how that works.

Love is en la ave de la paz
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

But you are gone- not for good but for now, Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good

2009-02-27T02:21:00.000-08:00

("Happiness"/The Fray)

December 15, 2008, Las Brujas, San Jose de las Matas, Santiago, Dominican Republic
Nonvenario de Enriqueta "Prieto" Medina de Estévez
Written and Spoken by CTE; A message on behalf of all the gradchildren.

Llevaremos a mamá en nuestros pensamientos todos los días y para siempre. Siempre acordaremos a mamá como ser tan creativa, creyando a la linda casa donde vivía.
El corazon de mamá vive en esta casa, en cada flor, cada piedra con sonrisa, y cada detalle puesto por su mano.
También la amaremos para siempre por querer hacer algo hermoso de su vida no importando la circunstancia en que vivío; y nosotros tambi´n queremos hacer algo hermosa de nuestras vidas y esta comunidad.
Y también quiero decir que durante todo este novenario yo he llevado este collar que mamá me hizo con tanto amor cuando murió mi abuelo papá Juanico. Este collar el cual yo he llevado con migo como muestra de cariño y respeto hacía ella.

love is in the way she was

Time on your side that will never end, The most beautiful thing you can ever spend

2009-02-25T23:40:00.000-08:00

("Oh My God"/ Mark Ronson ft Lilly Allen)

To be fair, I'm still starting this blog entry within the following day of my previous entry, thus still complying with my blogging promise. It would suck to mess it up on the first official day, ya know?

Unfortunately for this first official post...I am brain dead.

There several things that i want to talk abut and elaborate on but there's simply no way that would be able to do it in any fashion that would ustify my dojing it.

So what can I tell you that would at least make this post worth it? I cant even tell you a story about what's going on around me, as I'm just sitting around my apartment, listening to some music, thinking about how tired I am.

I just thought, "Have I ever mentioned how much I like my ringtone?" and then I realized that's probably the stupidest thing i could type out here, as a) no i obvious havent, b) when would have done so in my 8 pithy posts of the year past, c) why would I ever feel the need to say this in a blog entry??

The ringtone that I love just so much that i had to blurt it out on my blog is that jazz song called "Take Five". If dont know it buy name, just look it up, i'm almost positive you know it. it's interesting that i do love it so much, as i rarely hear it..... because nobody calls me. and the only people that do call me, are the same maybe 6-10 people, that each have their own ringtone, because on thing that i enjoy more than my main ringtone....it's assigning ringtones to people.

it's rather amusing to me that i rarely speak on the phone anymore. i was such a chatterbox at one point in my life. from 4th grade through about 7th grade, i spent my entire evening tying up my parent's phone lines with my talking about Buffy, the mean girls in my grade, and about whoever i wasnt actually on the phone with. After 7th grade I pretty much exclusively on aim from the moment i got home from classes into the evening...unless Joey was home. Then, with the beginning of the cellphone age came the regular warnings from my father about my forcing us to go over in our minutes. but now...no one calls me, and i don't really call anyone. unless you count my mother....but she's in a class all her own.

the main reason i dont actually get to hear any of my ringtones and talk to anyone is because of my full-blown addiction to blackberry messenger. it's quite intense. though there's an entire lack of vocal contact, i'm probably closer-to and in better-contact with more people (mainly my cousins) than I ever have been, and i really do love that. especially because that makes me feel like i'm actually still a part of their lives when i leave. which is really, very comforting. but. it really is an addiction. from the moment i wake up, until the moment everyone in the other timezones go to bed. i'm there. they're there. and always have something to say, i promise you. even if it's an update on what we're having for a meal, looking for suggestions on any given happening, or getting general daily updates by the minute. we know it's happening. this goes hand-in-hand with my recent obsession with twitter. one would think that my love for twitter would have extended directly back into blogging....alas. obviously not so much.

i'm just going to stop this now, because it's about as mundane as talking about potatoes. dont worry, we'll get there.

love is what we say when we smile

Believe me I can play games, 'cause I know all the rules

2009-02-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

("keep me warm"/ida maria)

so blogging.

This is something that I need to do more of, and that I clearly have fallen off the wagon about. I mean, it's just sad. let's look at the numbers:

2005: 162 posts
this was the year that started my blog, it was also my last year of high school and my first year of college. this blog came following my open diary and my xanga.....yeah, remember that?? no. most of you dont. because none of you were really part of my life at those points.

2006: 96 posts
this was the continued first yar of college into sophomore year, including the chica lit fiesta. and, most importantly, the year papá juanico died, this including some of my saddest entries.

2007: 24 posts
well, that's a dip. the theme continued into 2007, where the year was kicked off by the death of mamá chichila, followed by a summer semester in buenos aires, and a fall weekend trip to costa rica with the OAS. clearly, with all my plane hopping, i didnt see a need for blogging. an error, clearly.

2008: 8 posts.
really? seriously? 8 posts? that's the best i could do for one of my most eventful years on record? wow. i fail. i continued the plane-hopping to new extents and was generally tossed all about by fate in both great and horrible directions. but i'm still standing. and still optimistic.

so here we are.....2009....four years later.

I started this blog in January of my senior year of high school, and I named it "Breathe", because that's what i needed to do. I felt so overwhelmed by my present and my future. I felt like there was no way was going to get out of the mess I'd created for myself. I didn't think i was going to get into college, let alone knowing that was going to end up in California. I was at Lawrenceville. I was a prefect in Stephens (my sophomore/junior dorm). I had a lot of detentions as a result of tardies or not going to Mr Laubackhs Bio class. All of my friends were in McPherson (the senior girl’s dorm) and another was a prefect in Lower. I become really close to one of my sophomore prefectees and my housemasters. I’d just co-directed and set designed for the winter main-stage, (yet black box?), production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. My best friends were my three girls from Lawrenceville and my cousins. I just decied that I needed to just breathe in order to get myself together enough to get to the next part. And the breathing I am referring to, is the one pointed out my Dew Barrymore’s character in Ever After, befor she enters the ball. She whispers to herself to “Just breathe”. Haha, yeah. I’m not even kidding. That’s where I got the name of my blog...a Drew Barrymore movie.

So, now I’m a senior in college, and as we all know, I came to California. And this is the part where i give you all the correlations between these two times of my life, and the future is at my feet, etc etc. but, again, we all know this. I have similar emotions, though with increase range, thus sadder sadness, but also happier happiness. You know….if that makes sense.

Part of my Lenten promise to myself is that I’m going to blog something everyday. Whether it’s good or bad or is actual wirting or just talking at the world (like this entry), I’m going to say something. It’s just something that I need to do. Also, I’m giving up potatoes.

So this will act as a sort of reflection on 2008, being that I only gave a whopping 8 entries, though a few of them are good, heh. I have another private entry that I need to bring forth

For now I’ll stop making annoyed eyes at the group of teenagers sitting next to me. One of the girls, in an oversized yelo t-shirt, black spandex pants, and, of course, converse sneakers, just pulled a pink camera of out of her fake coach back and took a picture of her friends, who seems to be one of thos are-arent-they high school couples…..the picture is taken with the camera chifted at an angle, of course, and the kids being photographed are not smiling. The boy of the pictured couple just stole the camera, while yellow shirt girl gets back to her yellow ipod (with happy face sticker over the back apple logo) and sugary frappiccino with the “name” “Princess” scrawled along the side. I don’t know what they’re saying because, instead, I have Michael Stipe telling me about “The Great Beyond” in my ears. Both of the boys in this little teen group have wrists covered in multicolored bracelets, some beaded, and some braided, some rubbery. I am tempted to google this and see if it has some recent teenage meaning. Because I feel like I’ve seen a 20/20 or Oprah, where they have something to do with teenage social sex rings. And I feel like the fact that the boys’ wrists are positively covered in them, yet the girls’ have absolutely none, holds some significance.

I just aged about 10 years in my previous paragraph I think I should leave Starbucks.

Happy Fat Tuesday, Everyone! I’ll see you tomorrow with something better to say….I hope. I cant make any promises. I may just talk about poatoes.

Love is what the year will bring.

Où est mon maître le prince rebelle, Qui va fermer toutes ces fenêtre

2008-10-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

["Rebel Prince"/ Rufus Wainwright]

(A brief moment at the Musée d'Orsay, taken from notepad 28/09/08, Paris, France)

everyone takes even, calculated steps...speaks in slow muffled voices that rise and fall collectively, underscored by the sweeping scuffle that draws them each closer to each other, and the depicted realities of years passed. white overwhelms and dizzies as golden creases leap off the walls encasing and separating the swirls of evanescent momentum we will allow validate our day.

Degas postures a civil life of performance through browns and blues.

Monet choreographs a dance of the sleepy hues we dream in (blues, purples, and greens), all grouped together in a moment or an indecipherable, yet familiar, face.

Van Gogh plots a swiveled moment around an exact thought in precise color.

Renoir's moments are surreal and true, with renditions only barely teetering between the dreams and realities of the 19th century.

love is what surrounds us

[i promise a real post soon....or just more scratchings from my notepad...]

well i looked my demons in the eyes, laid bare my chest, said do your best, destroy me.

2008-07-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

["empty/ ray lamontagne"]

...
I watched as your words tumbled into the atmosphere, pounding off of my world, as I sat there, trying not to look at you, paralyzed by an outer numbness that deeper down was split in two. 82 degrees on 82nd street, referring to the two things in my line of vision; a settled darkness interrupted by gently incessant orange glows provided by street lamps and transient white flashes provided by passing cars, both sources reflecting dimly off the two faces in question. A couple sits in a car to decide their future, an uncertain future since the beginning. Each member aware of its uncertainty since that beginning, though one's path was bolstered by belief and faith, and the other's by fear and trepidation. In this moment, each are given no choice but to face the reality of the other's path, hopefully in an effort to define their relationship previously mired in uncertainty.

Carolina sits, motionless, wordless, wishing she were emotionless. If she were emotionless, she'd be able to pressure open the door, slide out of the seat, and slide out of her path in this story, and thus be avoiding the hurt she’d intended to evade from months before. Instead, she sits. Her face prickles and tingles, her throat tightens (removing the chance for words she wouldn't know how to say to begin with), she silently fights the muscles in her face from tensing, eyes trained forward, specifically, not looking at him. If she looks at him, she'll get caught; caught in the fear and the faith of both of their paths, and the tears that each of these prickles and tightenings usually signify would win. So instead of fleeing, and instead of crying, she sits, without words, and watches his. Each one of his words having the indefinable ability of drawing her in, and pushing her away from him, reflecting her two points of conflict. She watches his hands, wrap around, and then pound the steering wheel. She hears his voice, before it even forms its words, interrupted by gasps of air, fighting past the same tightening-of-the-throat that she fought with her silence. Both his words and her silence fight against the same outcome: their collective failure.

I don’t remember what the air felt like. I assume the heavy humidity of the impending day was already sinking over the city, I assume the air was thickened and only slightly agitated by small breezes, otherwise standing still over our bodies as we sucked it in throughout our given manifestations of disbelief...

love is caught between the spoken and unspoken.

One way is Rome and the other way is Mecca, On either side on either side, Of our motorbike, One way is home and the other way is papa, On either side

2008-06-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

on either side andPrepared to strike
("Greek Song"/Rufus Wainwright)
Oh hey.

So yesterday the city crushed me in sadness and I was beside myself in knowing what to do. I was entirely sniped in a called placed to my house. Papi picked up the phone and yelled at me, which kind skewed the rest of my afternoon. The scolding brought all of my current insecurities and uncertainties to light.

I was let out of work at about 1pm, but I didn't go home. I stayed in the office, alone, working. I didn't want to go home and do nothing, so I stayed and finished a project that I'd been given, feeling more productive.

Talking to Mr. Fernandez helped. Seeing him will help more, getting to talk to the students even more so. I love doing that, I really truly do.

I went through some drama with Chrissy, which she talked me through as best she could, but I don't like talking. So I left the office and went for a walk, letting my city pick me up from myself. When I finally arrived to ridgewood, all I could think about was how much I love this neighborhood. How familiar and at home I feel in it. When getting out of the subway I had a sudden memory of papa, which made tears well up and made me suddenly think "oh my god, I need to get out of this city!"

And then I thought, where would I go? My only options in my head were Buenos Aires, London, or Madrid. I internally panicked, trying to decide how I could get to one of these places, soon. And then I thought how sad this development is. I can't live the rest of my life on the run, because that's what's actually upsetting me to begin with. I feel lonely.

But once I walked out of the subway, into Ridgewood, my panic vanished with the Canarsie-bound L train. I know why I'm here. I'm here because I simply need to be. It's where I belong, it's my life happened, and where I intend for the grand moving schemes of my life to happen. I have best friends, family, and and actual tangible past here. I love it here. I do want a future here. I just hope a future wants me.

That's what I have for you. An angsty moment from my yesterday.

Yesterday actually ended extremely well. When I got back from my extra hours at work and pensive commute, I met up with Rosenys and Jovani for drinks and a talk, which was so lovely. I've so enjoyed having them with me over the last week or so. I appreciate their taking me in as a friend.

So I leave you with this mess of a post. A better one will come.

I'm currently on the Q55 bus, on myrtle ave, passing a castle-like building looming in the hazy Wednesday morning rain behind the apartment buildings, known to many as IS 77. I love that.

Love is when you talk

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She's in Love With the World, But Sometimes These Feelings Can Be So Misleading...She said "I must be fine, because my heart's still beating"

2008-05-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

("Fell in Love With a Girl"/ White Stripes)

So, Miami, we meet again.

I must say, for being my least favored airport, I end up here a lot, and thus, know it like the back of my hand.

I just stood on line for about 7 min, staring at a staggering collection of pastries for which I'm pretty sure names don't really exist. This, while the attendants chatted quite risbley with each other and other patrons in cuban-slathered spanish. The trigena girl behind me punctuated her desires with amores, "un chocolate, mi amor....solo, eso, amor....amorcito, tiene alguno croquetas por ahi?"

That's my problem, I feel, I'm just not funny in spanish. I've gotten to the point where my spanish really isn't half bad. I actually impress myself sometimes when I speak, I can read anything put in front of me, and write up most anything required as well, but I'm just not funny. There's a certain sensibility and nuance to being funny, such blatant portrayal of one's personality, a sign of comfort and confidence in one's surroundings and with onself. I have it english, oozing out of my pores. I mean, I stake no claim at being a comedian, but I have a distinct character that I unabashedly wave in front of my peers and the world at large. In Spanish, I lose all of that. This has been a problem that I've pinpointed for a few years now. It's not that I don't get the culture or the humor, my family has some absolutely ridiculous characters that I've observed and grown up around, my father included. My father is quite outright one of the funniest people I've ever encountered, and most definitely more specifically when he's speaking spanish. My brother and I have inherited much of his stylings, mannerisms, and flare in terms of presentation, set up, and sensibility for a crowd; though, in English. My brother and my father have the same jolly-natured smile (only my brother's is punctuated by dimples, which make it all the more endearing and reassuring), same manual gestures and cues during story telling, same way of surveying the room and faces mid-telling. It's quite fantastic.

My funny is different. Stems mostly out of mockery of myself, saying unexpected things, usually use of ghetto sensibility or phrasing in juxtaposition with my entirely unghetto nature and demeanor. This personality and putting myself on the line between coloquialisms doesn't exist for me in Spanish, and it's so disappointing for me. Until I gain full personality to back up my Spanish, I'm still going to be left feeling just as American as my beloved black-sheathed woman in the LAX terminal whenever I wait on line for my cafe con leche. I'm hoping Spain will help with this.

The downside to being on the east coast right now, is that many of those with whom I communicate regularly are still asleep. Time zones. Lame. I've texted a few east coasters, only one has responded, she even called me back.

I told her how strange it was to be going to the DR, yet not really be going to the DR. This trip, this time, the DR will be more like any other one of those other countries: hotels, atms, paperwork, travel. There will be no Cibao, no batidas de lechosa in sajoma, no inoa, no hacienda, no grandparents. So, really, is this going to be santo domingo? No. It's going to be the Dominican Republic. I'm excited nonethless (borderline "very" in fact), with a little scared around the edges, just to keep those adrenal glands working. I'm going to love to see how this plays out.

Okay, perhaps I will get to my terminal now, as I have long-finished my empanada and cafe, and have observed 3 seperate rounds of people sit in the booth next to mine.

Love is in the "dios to bendiga"
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Tomorrow Never Knows What It Doesn't Know Too Soon

2008-05-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

("Morning Glory"/Oasis)

So, let's play airport.

I'm currently tired out of my mind sitting in an American Airlines terminal in LAX. A late 20-something round-faced guy just announced strict new rules about carry-ons. Something about sizing, one-and-one items, checking bags otherwise, I don't know, nor do I really care, I decided long ago that none of these rules apply to me.

His hand, perched in front of his face as he spoke into the reciever; eyes shifter around, seemingly surprised to hear his own voice echoing out around us. He poked at the measuring bin as he sloppiky let down the reciever, sliding his hand against his forehead, moving his black curls back. To no avail, they just fell back to place.

He's currently shifting through some papers as a very american looking lady stand, legs shoulder-length apart, with a white beg wedged between them. And by "very american" I mean, very middle-american. Hair, and indescript shade of blonde and brown, with a little grey shading in-and-out to add to it's obscure plainness. Everything about her is strange, but unbearably homely. Her hips expand to a width of at least .5 more than her shoulder, resting stable trunks cushed over rubber pleather loafers. All of this cloaked in black jersey-knit pant and shirt. She looks back at the room, thinking no one sees her, but knowing she's all we have to look at. I think she is fabulous, but I'm not sure she know she does.

I met a cool guy over a beer earlier. He works as a paramedic in the arctic circle for a seismology group that works in oil. He's originally from Denver, one his way to Darwin, aurstralia by way of Sydney. He wants to go to Costa Rica within the next two year, and has a friend that went to the Dominican Republic last week. He aslo has a slightly twisted canine tooth that pokes just below his lip when he laughs. Small, circular black eyes that emote very little beyond hopeful exhaustion. Or maybe that's just me projecting.

I don't feel like my life is really happening right now, so pardon me as I look very much forward to 6 hours without any expectations or duties. I'm at an odd point, which I will discuss later, as in the process of posting, I've boarded the plane.

See you in Miami.

Love is the satisfaction of the journey
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I used to hover outside my truth, always worry of what I'd lose

2008-04-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

["Nolita Fairytale"/Vanessa Carlton]

Development, Currency Boards, Peso Appreciation, Monetary Policy, Privatization, Masculinity, Fiscal Discipline, UNDP Millenium Development Goals, NGOs, Education, Productivity Gains, GDP, Individuality, I think, therefore I am. Today is a college day.

I was named after Princess Caroline of Monaco. You know, the tall, gorgeous, brunette, confident, sophisticated daughter of Prince Rainier III of Monaco, and Hollywood royalty, Grace Kelly. Grimaldi. Aquarius. Billionaire. Has spectacularly attractive progeny...yeah, her.

I woke up this morning at 4:40am, after going to bed at 2:30am. I slept on the couch, with my ipod playing, and holding my cell phone, to make sure i felt the vibrate before the alarm sounded, to make sure I awoke. I didn't. I mean, I did, at 4:40, 45 min after my alarm sounded. I ate Cheetos and drank Diet Snapple Peach Iced Tea, while I developed some sort of argument regarding about gender issues in global politics and another about education as a development as self. I then decided it would be a good idea to wiki "ticklish" in an attempt to figure out what my not being ticklish says about me. A few non-productive minutes later, i finished my "feminist" thoughts on politics, took a shower and got dressed.

I greased a pan and boiled some water. I figured, I'm actually awake, I should make breakfast. I laid some bacon trip on the pan and placed an egg in the boiling water. Hard boiled egg, I'd done before, bacon, I had not. The bacon laid there, I shoved each over a few times while the oil began to sputter around the edges, curling them. I watched as the pinkish fibers darkened and sloshed around in the oil around it. Yum. Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5 pumped through my ears as i stared into the rolling water now bouncing the egg around.

I finished cooking. I ate. I washed my face, put on perfume, cleaned up the dishes, packed up my computer, and picked a pair of shoes from the pile of them which have accumulated next to my living room coach during the week. According to Ryan Seacrest, and his morning guest, Ashlee Simpson, it's going to be 85 degrees today. I miss the Z morning Zoo.

I left my apartment an hour early today, I just didn't want to be there anymore, it's so homework-toxic. As I walked to campus i thought about the work I'd have to turn in today, as, today is a college day. I'll be on campus for about 12 hours and I have something due for every class. Somethings I have yet to finish. I passed a university housing maintnence worker. I made eye contact, and i smiled. that's about all i was willing to do this morning. he said "hi", but when i did not respond, he said "HI" again, after passing me, with an attitude. i didnt feel bad. i thought about how curious it was that i'd already had verbal contact with three people since waking today, though I had yet to speak a word. So goes the world of IMs and text messages. oy.

and now, i think about the paper that i have to finish writing during my next two classes. but i just really felt like typing up a quick blog, lucky you. i'll have to walk to down to my Spanish class which starts in about a minute, hand in both assignments due today, participate at random, finish writing a paper that i should have written earlier, get my thoughts in order about my international political economy presentation later today, and continue my suspicions that i smell like bacon. dont worry, i already posted for IR.

more later, good day!

love is to die dreaming

Awake but cannot open my eyes...Crawl back into bed to dream of a time when your heart was open wide and you loved things just because

2008-04-15T14:58:00.001-07:00

["A Better Son/Daughter"/ Rilo Kiley]

If you listen to the song "Dazed and Confused" by Led Zeppelin, you'll get a pretty accurate depiction of what I feel like right now. Not necessarily the lyrics, but the movement of the music itself: dragged lulls punctuated by bursts of calculated confusion, a thumping gallop, only to settle back through the confusion down to a tumultuous halt. Only, I feel like I'm standing still amidst these lulls and swells, my hair and skirt are getting blown about with them. I only watch. Wince.

Right, okay, I just needed to sit and let that stew for a little while. I wrote that about 2 hours ago. I thought it as I walked to campus this morning. I have these moments, which I've discussed before, where I narrate my life in my head, as if it were playing out in a book, being narrated outside myself. I've done this since I was a child, sometimes it happens more often than others, it happens constantly when I'm writing. When it happens when I'm not in the thick of a writing fit, it only flickers, a few times throughout the day, makes me lament for days when such narration would carry me through my day, and thus make my actions feel more accomplished, and thorough. Now, instead, I stand, and I wince.

I haven't been writing, but it's been happening in more than flickers. I just avoided deciding what to do with them. Though, I guess I have decided, as I'm sitting here.

I stood at the crosswalk this morning. Hoover & Jefferson. [I enjoy that I still live by a Jefferson, it makes it okay.] Waiting for the white walking man to flash onto the pole across from me, Led Zeppelin swirled around me shooting cold up my bare legs, swaying and tugging at the skirt Margarita bought me before going to Argentina, "For dancing", she said. She bought one for herself as well.

I shoved my Rapsodia jacket up to glance at my watch: 9:25. Class starts at 9:30, not yet on campus, still need to go to the computer lab to print…not bad. Three others arrived to class later than I, not bad at all. Our Chilean teacher called on one of them to read an example translation from our homework, "¿Querés que leo el mio o el tu{sh}o?", he responded slathered in Porteño/Buenos Aires accent. The accent has followed me since my trip, though I suppose, I, in reality, never noticed before.

I typed up and submitted the IR homework that I was too lazy to wake up for this morning, while raising my hand to read example translation sentences to the class, and sending morning salutations to my brother over IM. The day I realized that I could actually get an extra hour of sleep, and write up/post my IR homework during my Spanish class instead of before, was a bad day for my attention to my Spanish class. Though, I was bored senseless anyway, I hate grammar, so it's no real tragedy.

My morning was lived in large part in hot pursuit and longing for coffee. I seemed to have reacted a bit too harshly facially to something my IR professor said in lecture, as he made eye contact with me as I shook my head, scoffing, introspectively at his question, "Do you have something to say, Carolina?". "Oh, um, no, just…that it's not surprising at all, given the increased demand….etc. etc." Don't worry, I wasn't caught off guard with nothing to say, of course not...he just always ignores me, so I was surprised he noticed my expression. I satiated my brewed desire after running around campus, getting paperwork signed, approving health insurance, financial transactions, and other smatterings of responsibilities demanding signatures and attention for Madrid. Did you know that Starbucks has new cups? I noticed this last week. I like them. It's their attempt to reflect their "roots" as an organic corporation that cares about their coffee and the world, simple beginnings, with simple coffees. I just like the brown.

I walked around campus, dodging beach cruisers, skipping up steps, and taking sips from my brown-detailed cup with "Caroline" written on the side (they never get it right). Thinking about three things, primarily (now that my need for coffee was off my mind): Hong Kong currency board, strategy for paper-writing, and New York. The first two have obvious school connections, (and i will not bore you further with such things) while the last is in direct relation to my summer. Not that anybody who reads this anymore is someone that I don't talk to on a daily basis anyway, but I'll be in New York this summer, and that's a lovely, lovely thing.

I'll thump and swell along with the music when I get there. That's, at least, the idea. I'll have lunches and adventures with Irene, Ileana, and Maria. So many, it just sounds like the best thing of my life. I'll pick up where I left off on several things, projects, and friendships; walk through old haunts, discover new ones. I'm so intrigued by the different relationships, (some familiar, some not so much), I've forged that will play out in different ways, all in the context of this old New York. It's going to be the combination of all my trips since 2003 (post-move), plus whatever has happened in-between, and, as we all know, that's quite the "whatever". Things from these visits that I've lived with and interacted with only tangentially, in reality, since then. Though, you know, it could be none of these things. Until then, I will look at it through my daydreams and wince through the motions of schoolwork I have to go through to get there.

More on the above later, I guess, as I've decided to leave you with a mundane post of my day. Deal it with it. After all the mourning and other points that have overtaken this blog, count your lucky stars I gave you some mindless mundane day-in-the-life.

Love is what tugs and swirls.

you who were born there where beauty is existence

2008-01-27T04:32:00.001-08:00

["Greek Song"/ Rufus Wainwright]

A year ago I was in New York, and my grandmother was still alive, even if only for a few more days. I'd just gone with a few of my uncles, aunts, and a cousin, to drop off my grandmother at JFK.

I rode in the middle of the back seat of my tio Pito's Isuzu, while it rained along Cypress Avenue. I rode wedged between my tía Amarylis, and my tía Mariana, we rolled passed Mt Judah Cemetery, under the Jackie Robinson Parkway, and entered the highland park area, as I thought "if we'd taken a right, we'd be going to my house," wishing it were still my house. My grandmother, all the while, sat quietly in the front passenger seat, slightly slumped, occasionally punctuating a chuckle with her handkerchief pressed lightly at her lips, gazing at the wet brooklyn whirring by. She thought of nothing I could ever truly know or imagine, though could assume it involved the yellow house perched upon green hills that she was headed towards. My aunts asked me about my life, my estudios. I lofted the idea of maybe going to Argentina to study over the summer, they commended me on my efforts to get my Spanish down after a childhood of refusal. i'm sure the rest of this story is nested somewhere in this blog, so i'll spare you the rest.

but, the point is, a year has passed, i dont understand this passage of time that has occurred. sure, a lot of has happened, but, jeez, when did it all happen?

i traveled the hemisphere a bit, that was nice, though, not entirely, earth-shatteringly, life-altering. traveling is definitely something i enjoy, and plan on doing at any given chance, but i'm no girl-woman-lady-person massively changed from the experience....it just felt [feels] natural, like it was [is] just the progression of where I was [am] supposed to be. Living in Buenos Aires was lovely. It was a very urban city with millions of people, subways, and spanish...you see, none of this was a vast stretch for me. it's much more of a burden for me to have to endure my remaining time in Los Angeles, than it was for me to be in any of the places I traveled to in the year that has passed.

unfortunately, traveling has only made me realize that I would rather be everywhere else, but LA. i mean, this place is fine, but everywhere else is better. I'm sorry if my words offend you, Los Angeles, but you've yet to give me anything to write home about beyond a few of seemingly enervated friendships, weather ive grown bored of, kissed toads who remained toads, a review of an uninspired population, and an education. I've gone out and tried, but, I remain dispassionate and aloof.

Santiago de Chile reminded me very much of Denver, if Denver were the 2nd cousin of New York City. It was Denver with an urban-like edge, which, I admit charmed me. The streets were neat and in many places, wide. Mountains loomed in the background, as brown air stuck above us in a haze, while the cold did little to deter any of its inhabitants' plans. But, in sections that popped up easily, yet unexpectedly, from subway maps and Irish street names, stood beautiful colonial and 19th century architecture, which satisfied my craving that was left only half satiated by Buenos Aires (which has beautiful 19th & turn of the century architecture, but no colonial architecture or anything like a grand cathedral that predates the Paris Push).

Rio de Janeiro was what i imagine the Dominican Republic would be like, if it had money. The colors, smells, and rythms were all very similar, but flourished within the busy, yet organized streets, of a comprehensive city....with favelas.

Costa Rica was an amazing trip in a different way, as it felt like a destiny very clearly being fulfilled, but still, slightly hollow. I note the slight emptiness because it was everything my grandfather would have been proud of, and so much of what he'd admired and watched in others. So, I only wish that he could have lived to see it, so that I could pick up the phone and tell him of my journey and responsibilities, and how his memory did not escape me for one moment. I know he's proud, and will be of everything else I plan on doing, but you know, it's a process, I suppose.

As for the blog, I miss it, I do. I miss the process of it, the way it makes me think. Mainly I miss feeling obligated to write this part of my life, because it's something I find I need to do, or all the beautiful words and details that I rehash at night or during the day just float out of my mind, wasted. and i hate being wasteful.

I dont know where exactly I am, or where this will take me, but here's to 3 years with Breathe and a 2008 to figure it out.

love is knowing that life doesn't just happen around you

I'll fly like a paper, get high like planes, Catch me at the border I got visas in my name

2007-12-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

["Paper planes"/ M.I.A.]

okay, let's chat, because I havent posted in a few months, and I've missed it.

i dont really know what sort of shift occurred in the past few months, but clearly did happen, as i no longer saw a reason to post.

my 3rd year with this blog has been quiet, which doesnt reflect my goings-ons, and that is unfortunate, and unfair to those that read (or used to read) this blog.

my love affair with cramped seats worth hundreds of dollars that hover 30,000 feet above ground, has continued, as, since my last post, i've been to New York twice, and Costa Rica.

7 countries [and two new states] this year. i never thought i'd get to be a person that gets to say things like that, especially not at this point in my life. it makes me so happy.

airplanes every month, odd.

2008 does not look so eventful, though I already have trips to the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Italy, and Czech Republic in works. one can only hope that more Latin American countries have elections that I get invited to, that they let me study abroad in the fall, and that April plans are successful.

I think it's important that I try to keep this alive, especially considering how disgruntled I have become in the past few month, it'd probably be better that I type out my theories and thoughts, that batter my friends with them at any given chance.

I'm mostly trying to figure out what to do this summer. i need a job, or, internship, rather, and so comes the challenge of finding someone to hire me, egh.

i'm too scatter-brained to have a coherent post right now, but there will be more, i promise

love is what we say before we leave

Tho' I battled blind, Love is a fate resigned, Memories mar my mind

2007-07-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

["love is a losing game"/ amy winehouse]

a year ago i was about to land in JFK. i dont think i had a mind or sense about me, nor do i think i have any now. all i knew, was that i had to get to 1390 jefferson and that my grandfather would be there waiting, and that it would be my last visit with him...i only thought i had more time.

in a week i'll be landing in jfk. i'm going to new york next week, i've been contacting people, trying to fill my time. it's only a week, but it feels so hollow. i asked myself, "what did i used to do in new york, that took up so much time?" but then i realized why it feels so goddamn hollow.

it's fine. i'm okay. this blog has consumed me in an entire permanent motion of mourning. it must be a drag to read.

my trip was great. i had a wonderful time, i miss argentina, i wish i could have stayed longer, i wish i could have done a full term. Buenos Aires was a great city, i felt like i belonged, even when i was sick and miserable, the uneven pavement, crazy traffic, and bland food still felt right. the overly packed morning subte never even bothered me as much as everyone else would say; i blame a few years of morning rush hour subway from brooklyn to the upper east or west sides. though, in new york the main goal on the subway is to not. touch. anyone. nobody ever wants to touch a stranger in that city. whereas in buenos aires, mornings were began intimately packed with strangers on the the subway that all goes to one place and just about never connects to another line, therefore allowing for very little relief of this sardine approach to travel, with only more people sliding in each stop. now, i come from the new york, dont touch (or better yet dont look at me), school of thought, but the morning subte rides never really bothered me.

i was talking to jessica as we waited for our boat to argentina (from uruguay) to board....i was commenting on how immigration officers love to mess up the stamps on my passport, pointg out how the inept uruguay officer gave me and entrance, when he was suppsed to give me an exit, only to realize it last minute, then stamp an exit right along a crease, not a box. and how, upon entering chile, i received the 3rd degree from the immigration officer, "'how old are you? where were you born?' well i dont know, it seems that very information is on my fucking passport which you're holding..." i told jessica as i continued on upon my little rant...a 40something, 6ftsomething, balding white man with glasses and a button down shirt eyed us the entire time, in that way that you know he understands every word your saying, he waited for me to finish my chile rant in order to cut in and ask where i was from, "new york", i replied, [i still use new york], he asked , "city, or.." i cut him off with "brooklyn". he laughed and shook his head, "i thought so, only someone from new york would think and talk like that..." he was from brooklyn too.

next week will be good for me

love is knowing that this haze is worth something

Leaving the note that she hoped would say more...Quietly turning the backdoor key, Stepping outside, she is free.

2007-05-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

[¨she´s leaving home¨/ The beatles]

so guess so who´s hanging out in downtown buenos aires?

we got in yesterday morning at about 8:15am BsAs time. the flight was so long, it felt like it would never end. jessica and i were sitting next to each other, we sang songs and danced around in order to pass time. we tried sleeping, but that ddint work as the seats were entirely uncomfortable and the plane was freezing. on the line for immigration, this man from texas, in his later 40s, complimented us on our singing dancing. we told hi that he should have offered us such encouragment while on the plane, so we would have continued.

being that the flight was from Dallas, there were a bunch of very, ¨texas¨people. the guy sitnig next to me on the other side of the aisle was going to to Argentina to hunt. now that´s, hardcore. he was wearing a button down shirt that had ¨texas game warden¨embroidered over the breast pocket. his texas drawl was heavy, and he was very gentlemenly, helping me and jessica with our bags. of the texas characters there was also a heavier lady wearing a paisely-print shirt, with big-dyed-blonde hair and thick black eyeliner and blue eyshadow...all these people ending up in buenos aires, argentina.

i really enjoy it here, it´s very much like new york, but everything, instead of a few things, is in spanish. it´s really nice.

our host family (me and jessica have the same family) is soo cute. they really are a professional family, luciano and maria. there are about 14 other girls in the house too, which is absurd, they are all, also, studying in buenos aires frm abroad, so it´s fun. the house is awesome, we all have our own room, and there´s a terrace at the top of the house where you can see the surrounding houses and buildings, with a nice breeze, where we eat sunday dinner. there´s a long spiral staircase along the open inside. my room is underneath the stairs, we refer to it as either my hair potter room, or my batman cave. i´ll try and get pictures when i get the chance.

i accidentaly locked my dresser, so luciano had to use his tools to take out the lock, apparetnly i wasnt supposed to find the key and be curious and lock it.....so goes my life, hah.

ever since getting off the plane from denver to dallas, i´ve begun feeling sick, and last night i was feverish and i felt (and still feel) like my head was about to implode). i brought some medicine, so i´ve been taking it, and it´s helped. i dont really care that i´m sick, because i´m in buenos aires and there are many otherr things for me to put my energy towards. heh

i´m able to use the same cell phone i use in the US here, except with a BsAs SIM card and phone number, it´s pretty cool. i still cant figure out what my parents have to dial in order to call my cell phone, any help with that would be great. if you want my phone number email me, or leave me a message here to let me know.

okay, i have to continue my wandering around BsAs, ciao!

love is the feeling so much possibility

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn.....'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane

2007-05-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

["leaving on a jetplane"/Peter, Paul, and Mary]

so i've sucked at updating recently, i apologize. though, i promise i havent been up to much of anything but finals, packing, guitar hero, and hanging out with my cousins. family has been a little intense lateoy, but, honestly, when are they not? i feel terrible for having to leave right now, as there are some crazy things-a-brewin', but i have to go, and i'll be back, and my cousins BETTER update me as much as possible

though, today, i'm off to argentina, and i will be updating (and twittering: http://twitter.com/serrot ), so please keep in touch and stay tuned, more will come, i promise.

i know this is a weak entry, but i have to pack up my computer and go to the airport.

love is in the miles left behind

Everybody seems to think I'm lazy, I don't mind, I think they're crazy, running everywhere at such a speed, till they find there's no need

2007-05-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

["I'm Only Sleeping"/ The Beatles]

i have to begin today with a birthday wish to my grandmother, today she would have turned 87. lo lamento mucho que no lo llegaste cumplir con nosotros en persona, pero nosotros siempre te llevaremos en nuestros corazones.

sorry about the entire lack of updates school has entirely eaten my life and i'm about stressed out of my mind.

now that i'm actually posting, i have nothing to say, how disappointing.

I went to Tijuana, Mexico this past weekend (last weekend of april) for my roommate's mother's wedding. It was a really nice wedding and Jessica's family is great. we arrived Friday night and after crossing the boarder decided against driving down to Rosarito because the how late we ended up arriving and traffic, so we stayed at the hotel in TJ. After a few drinks at the hotel and talking to Jessica's mother and aunts, Chrissy stayed in sleeping and I went bar hopping with Jessica and her brother, that was more fun than i thought it would be, so i'm glad i went.

the next day was the wedding, but before it was lunch at Jessica's tía Carmen's house. We couldnt get the gate to the complex open, so we made Jessica's brother jump the fence to open the door. once actually made it over the sharp spears and he got to the other side, Jessica's uncle happened to opened the door. we made our way into the turqouise, borderline seafoam green, house, and hurried spanish bounced between the pink walls, grand gestures and smiles coming from the kitchen, it was all so welcoming and comfortable...and then i saw her.

seated in a wheelchair facing the opposite direction silvered hair, still stubbornly holding on to some black along the ends, pulled back and twirled behind her head, beige cardigan sweater with a few golden details, barely noticeable; blue cottony dress, flower patterns scattered throughout, her hands resting one on top of the other on her lap, milky, yet pigmented skin aged and beautiful; just as i had left her in january. only, it wasn't her. as it was true that i had left her in such a condition in january, but i was also reminded that i saw her in an entirely different state in february. the woman that sat before me, motioning me to sit next to her, smiling, and nodding, bearing a striking resemblance to my own grandmother was not, and unfortunately could not be my own grandmother, she was Jessica's.

I ate my lunch, inlcuding homemade queso y pan with some café, beside her, as she and i exchanged knowing glances, and she encouraged me to eat more. i felt so comforted and hollow, i had nothing more to say but turn to chrissy and mumble "i love jessica's grandmother..." and tell the grandmother what a lovely time i had and gusto i had of finally being able to meet her. as we walked to the car the comfort was sucked out of the edges and i saw my reflection in the car window, my eyes burned as the hollowness i'd been hiding from stared back at me, seeping out its boundaries. i lept to the back of the minivan and slumped over as the salty grief sputtered out. i didn't think i was going to cry.

the rest of the day was fun, despite my moment of mourning. the rest fo the day was filled with sunbathing, taco stands, a yankee/red sox game, a hotel room packed with hairspray and a bride/bridesmaid, and, of course, a wedding. we danced, we ate, we drank and were overall merry. sunday was marked by a two hour line to the border, which didn't feel so long, and a two hour drive back to LA, during which i slept. i spent the rest of my evening and night procrastinating, then starting my angola final which i later found out was pushed to later during the week.

finals and packing have eaten my life, and i still have to go to summer school, granted in argentina. eep.

love is in the blue of her mother's eyes.

the dust has only just begun to fall...spin me round again and rub my eyes, this can't be happening when busy streets a mess with people would stop to

2007-04-16T03:16:00.000-07:00

hold their heads heavy
["Hide and Seek"/Imogen Heap]

i just spent that last few minutes reading through a few past blog entries. there's a lot that i miss.

i got another tattoo today. people may think i'm getting out of control with the tattoos. people might think there's something wrong, as a i get so many seemingly meaningless tattoos. so many spontaneous moments, i'm obviously going to regret later down the road. what's so bad about regret? the tattoos celebrate the spontaneous moments. i love the idea of being eternally marked by my youth. i love the idea of being marked by all the moments that led to that etch in my skin, in that way those moments will continue to hold value in my life as a float along. i got four balloons today. i think my grandparents would understand and approve. not so much of the tattoo, but of the mentality i had going into it. the idea that i'm trying so hard to enjoy, and be happy in this moment, i want it so badly and i know they want it so badly for me. but i continue to fail. i want to carry a bit of celebration with me, a celebration i hope to believe in soon.

a friend i didnt even know was a friend got in touch with me the other day. we recounted our past year to each other, both years tainted by death. his brother passed away. i remember when he told me his brother was sick. he's so nice to me, i really dont understand it, i just talk a lot, too much, always. regardless of my babble, i used to like our conversations. for some reason, after we spoke, i actually missed him. he invited me out for a meal, but we both know it wont happen, as it hasnt happened in the past year.

when i was younger and my mother would wake me up early, i'd flip onto my stomach and press my hands over my closed eyes. i'd then take my hands off and watch the shapes and colors dance around my closed eyelids. i'd decide what they were, think of little stories about them, describing the movements. they were like stars. this was when i was very young, as it was when my bed was on the far wall, and my walls were purple. it was when my brother went to school and i did not yet. my mother would wake me up when my brother left for kindergarten. i watched a movie where the protagonist girl did the same thing. i've been doing it when i wake up in the morning recently.

did you enjoy those four random bits of life i've offered?

coherency has never been my strong point.

love is all that was here before.

Cuando a la casa del lenguaje se le vuela el tejado y las palabras no guarecen, yo hablo...No es muda la muerte.

2007-04-05T17:47:00.000-07:00

["Fragmentos para dominar el seilencio"/ Alejandra Pizarnik]

the world is a weird place, i never thought this more than after this past year.

i quickly befriended a girl in my spanish class, we sat next to each other by chance on the second day of class. she's from los angeles, and thinks i travel a lot, "you're always going different places" she said. which, i suppose, is true this semester in particular.

on a monday in january, walked into class, fell into her chair and glanced, worriedly, at me. i could tell she'd been crying, and i asked her what was wrong. "my cousin died," as she fumbled with her computer,"you're going to think i'm crazy, but i have some pictures..."

"oh my god, i'm so so sorry...and i dont think your crazy,it's okay." i take a lot of pictures too, as we all know.

she contiinued to show me pictures of her mourning family, around a white casket. her cousn had been in a coma for years, "i didn't expect to cry so much, we all just got so emotional, i dont know why."

i went on to explain my experience with death over the summer and how, i took a lot of picures. she told me she couldnt imagine what would happen if her grandfather passed away and showed me pictures of him. we were connected by mourning.

that following weekend i was on a plane to go see my grandmother for the last time.

when i got back from that she commented on how strange it was that we were just talking about sickness and passing away and my grandmother gets gravely sick.

it happened i made my trip, so goes the comedy/tragedy that is life.

on monday she walks hurridly into class, newly highlighted hair, falls into her chair. "my grandfather is sick, my sdister overheard that he only has 5 months to live, i dont even know what to think..." i asked with what, "a tumor", i asked where,"the pancreas"....oh....was my response. i mentioned that's what my grandfather had. she said it was inoperable, and that her mother said he'd lost a lot of weight. "i dont know what to do, like should i go see him? he's in texas!"

"go. go see him. it doesnt matter where he is, just go see him, it's important to you, you should," i replied.

so goes the way the world works.

yesterday my late grandmother's brother, abelardo passed away. he was the house closest, next to, my grandmparents' house. the children from my grandparents' house and there house all grew up together, going back and forth between them. his wife, maría, is my mother's godmother. it is because of maria that my mom was able to get an education. maria took my mom from my grandparents to live with her and abelardo, so that she coudl go to school past the 4th grade with their own and my paternal grandparents' children. it's an intricate web that was woven en ese campo.

i rememeber going to see maría y abelardo whenever they came to the US. my mother would take us. they would stay at lucha's house in queens. her couches were covered in plastic, and she always had a big christms tree. tío abelardo would sit furthest, duirng each trip, another ailment. maría would sit closest, speaking quickly, hand resting one on top of the other on her lap.

it's simply unbelievable, these people.

i leave with the poem i quoted above.

Fragmentos Para Dominar El Silencio

I

Las fuerzas del lenguaje son las damas solitarias, desoladas, que cantan a través de mi voz que escucho a lo lejos. Y lejos, en la negra arena, yace una niña densa de música ancestral. ¿Dónde la verdadera muerte? He querido iluminarme a la luz de mi falta de luz. Los ramos se mueren en la memoria. La yacente anida en mí con su máscara de loba. La que no pudo más e imploró llamas y ardimos.

II

Cuando a la casa del lenguaje se le vuela el tejado y las palabras no guarecen, yo hablo.

Las damas de rojo se extraviaron dentro de sus máscaras aunque regresarán para sollozar entre flores.

No es muda la muerte. Escucho el canto de los enlutados sellar las hendiduras del silencio. Escucho tu dulcísimo llanto florecer mi silencio gris.

III

La muerte ha restituido al silencio su prestigio hechizante. Y yo no diré mi poema y yo he de decirlo. Aún si el poema (aquí, ahora) no tiene sentido, no tiene destino.

love is what find around us

Lazy lady had a baby girl , And a sweet it made, Raised on pradies, peanut shells and dirt , In a railroad cul-de-sac

2007-04-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

["odalisque"/deceberists]
so, there's something i was going to post, but i dont have time right now....so....SURVEY.....

001. When's the last time you ran?
saturday

002. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them?
when they get tears i dont wear them anymore

003. What are you dreading right now?
all the papers i've been putting off

004. Do you celebrate 4/20?
no

006. Favorite ice cream?
coconut.

007. When was your last doctor's visit?
eye doctor almost a year ago, dentist almost a year ago, normal doctor, idk 1 1/2 or 2 years? in case you wanted the full report

008. Do you get the full 8 hours of sleep a night?
haha. no.

010. "First Loves Are Never Over;" is this true for you?
oui

011. Think of all your exes. Would you take any of them back?
ummm...i dont know...i dont think so, i'm just past them.

012. If anyone came to your house on your "lazy days" what would they find you wearing?
yoga pants and tank top or random tshirt

014. Have you ever been on your school's track team?
in high school, yes. my only varsity letters...except when i was manager for the girls softball team, haha

015. Do you own a pair of Converse?
yes, black hightops from freshman year of high school, i dont remember the last time i wore them

016. Who did you copy and paste this survey from?
lacey [oyfreakinvey]

017. Do you eat raw cookie dough?
yes

018. Have you ever kicked a vending machine?
yes, an dof course, pushed shoved, and punched as well

019. Don't you hate when the radio ruins good songs by playing them over and over?
i dont really listen to the radio, unless i'm in a car.....but usually they overplay bad songs and make me like them

021. Do you watch Trading Spaces?
never

022. How do you eat oreos?
ducked in milk, so good.

023. Have you ever stayed online for a very long time waiting for someone?
yep

024. Are you cocky?
i can be

030. Could you live without a computer?
no, i really really dont think so

031. Do you wear your shoes in the house?
yeah, but only until i sit down and curl up or soemthing.

033. At what age did you find out that Santa wasn't real?
in 2nd grade a fifth grader on the bus said that santa clause died a long time ago, but that it was his ghost that delivered the presents, which i thought made sense and was entirely possible

034. How many phones, house phones and cell phones are in your house?
in apartment, a cell phone for each of us, no landline

035. What do you do when you're sad?
sleep and/or complain/blog

036. Who would you call first if you won the lottery
i dont know.....probably my brother and/or karla & TF5, and my parents

037. Last time you saw your best friend[s]?
well i kin dof saw jessica this morning, i saw chrissy yesterday, i saw the TF5 in march, i saw maria and irene in january, ileana in july, and deal in february of last year. =/

040. Who or what sleeps with you?
my ipod

041. Are you/have you ever been in love?
i have been

042. Pancakes or french toast?
pancakes

043. How do you like your eggs?
usually scrambled, but fried is also soooo good, though i rarely have it

044. Are you in high school?
no

045. Is anyone on your bad side right now?
yes

046. What jewelry are you wearing?
none

047. What's the first thing you do when you get online?
check my gmail

049. Do you watch Grey's Anatomy?
yes

050. How do most people spell your name?
carolina, they just pronounce it wrong, or caroline [<--ugly, sry to all carolines]

051. Would you wear a boy/girlfriends clothes?
yesh

054. Where do you work?
annenberg tech services

056. What are you doing tomorrow?
school, celebrating jessica's brithday

057. Is Justin Timberlake becoming the next Michael Jackson?
no

058. Favorite name for a girl?
ercilia....deal with it.

059. Favorite name for a boy?
desiderio....deal with it.

060. Will you keep your last name when you get married?
i dont know....maybe hyphen?

061. Your favorite restaurant you don't get to eat much at?
tasty donut and coroto's

062. When is the last time you left your house?
um....march 18th?

066. How do you eat your steak?
Medium rare.

067. Do you return your cart?
sometimes....but definitely not when i'm at superior

069. Do you have a dishwasher?
at school, no at home, yes

070. What noise do you hear?
madonna

071. Would you survive in prison?
i guess

072. Next concert you hope to go to?
i dont even know.

073. What was the last thing you ate?
a peanut butter & banana sandwhich

074. When was the last time you said I love you and meant it?
probably the last time i said it to my parents, which wasnt yesterday because yesterday my dad made me feel like shit. or, the last time i spoke to karla, or yesterday when i spoke to deal.

076. If all of your friends were going on a road trip, who would be most likely to over pack?
um...me? idk or jessica.....or karla

077. Do you know anyone with the same name as you?
mechi and valeche's aunt

078. How many shoes do you own
hahaah....i have no idea...more than i actually use

080. When is the last time you ate peanut butter?
45 min ago

081. What service is your cell phone?
the one that hates karla's cell phone service

082. What's for dinner?
um....i have no idea

083. What's the last thing you purchased?
jessica's birthday present

084. Do your siblings ever pay for stuff for you?
yes, thank you joey!

085. Where is your cell phone?
in my bag

086. Is your phone on vibrate or ring?
vibe & ring

087. What brand are your pants right now?
levis

088. Ever been to Georgia?
yep, atlanta

089. Did you eat breakfast this morning?
no

090. Do you like marshmallows?
only if they're the big ones

091. What irritates you most on the internet?
annoying people

092. What brand is your digital camera?
sony

093. Do you watch movies with your parents?
yes, sometimes, at home

096. What song best describes your life right now?
"rehab"? idk...not really, i just like that song right now....um, "hundred"? or probably "oh, what a world", actually

097. Do you own expensive perfume/cologne?
it's not really all that expensive, but it's not cheap either, i dont know

098. Are you taking college classes right now?
ugh, yes.

101. Do you like sushi?
yes, and i really want some

102. Do you get your hair cut every month?
no, it hardly grows

103. Do you go online everyday?
yep....unless i'm traveling.

But you've had time to go out in the world now, But you chose to run away, Well, people ask you what you're doing now, You don't even know what to say

2007-04-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

["True Reflections"/ Boyd Tinsley]

and so and so and so

i work really hard to be accepted, i have since i was a child. i suppose we all do. when i was a kid i would tag along with my brother for everything possible, i'm surprised he didn't end up hating me, he almost did. if he didnt go to boarding school, i think he would have. we would have gone through that thing that siblings do, where they exclude each other from the other's life in order to find a way to "define" themselves within their own world of friends and school. we didnt even have to go through that with our parents. we went away for that. i'm also glad that we both went away for all that, instead of one at home and the other not. though, it has resulted in my being in a strange place with my parents, as i've already gone through all that, but i still live at home because of my studies....resulting in many random moments of them getting over protective and my looking at them like they're crazy. they're very confused, as am i.

when we lived in scotchtown, we lived in a cul de sac, a huge huge cul de sac. there were a bunch of other kids about my brother's age...i always tagged along. how awesome must it have been for a group of 7/8 year olds to have a 5 year old tag along? towards the end of our time in upstate, my brother began his exclusion. one day he went to hang out with the cul de sac friends without me. they were in our backyard, on the far patio, joey wouldnt let me go hang out with them. i freaked out, i thought joey hated me, i thought they all hated me. i sat at the window of joey's room sobbing, watching them on the patio, peering through the trees from the closed window...watching movements, watching the laughter. my grandmother finally rushed upstairs from her room in the basement to asked me what was wrong, why was i so sad? i told her, she assured me that joey didnt hate me, she just said to give some time and then go out later. i did, and i did. i sheepishly walked through the wooden patio, edged across the cement steps to the cement patio, my brother called me over. he asked me if i'd been crying, i said no. he pulled me in closer, staring into my eyes, "yes, you have!" he yelled in front of all the cul de sac children. i felt pathetic and ran back into the house, into my own room.

by the time he hit middle school, we moved back to nyc. it was different there....we were in completely different schools and by 7th grade he was in prep and had his manahattan friends. i soon did the same.

i survived, we all survive. all i know is that i was really sad at that point, and then i got mad at him for saying they were going to do a cul de sac carniva, when he was clearly ripping off of the carnival he and i held on a long summer day a few weeks earlier.

oh childhood, you never fail to make me laugh at myself.

in other news, i bought my BsAs plane ticket, i'll be there from may 19th-july 11th

love is what fills your time and mind

armed with this small butterfly net i will face the world alone & never be lonely

2007-03-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

["Butterfly Nets"/bishop allen]

stolen from karla and suvii =)

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

love is planning the unexpected

All the city streets a wondrous chorus singing, All these poses oh how can you blame me, Life is a game and true love is a trophy

2007-03-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

and uneventful week of papers and presenations, woo!

this morning i saw a ladybug on a leaf on my way to work, that made me happy. i also noticed that there are suddenly flowers everywhere, that's also nice.

those my big reports, i dont do anything. i sleep, i eat, i think, i listen to music, i daydream about argentina....life.

we had our second informational meetign about buenos aires. now i have much more information. we have to go about buying our plane tickets this week and then start the process of our brazilian visas.
["poses"/rufus wainwright]

i have nothing to say, i dont know why i'm posting.

the cutest puppy ever (coco) died last week, =(....here's coco in my apartment, looking like a stuffed animal.

maybe i'll have something to say later...

love is something you decide.

hoy día luna día pena, hoy me levanto sin razon, hoy me levanto y no llevo a ninguna destinación, hoy me levanto y no veo, por ahí cualquiera

2007-03-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

solución
[Manu Chao/ "Dia Luna, Dia Pena"]

The mountains broke gently through the notorious Los Angeles fog which simply added to the orangey haze of the sunset-yielding horizon; a very different picture from the jagged white-frosted mountains, simply living up to their name, that i'd seen a little over an hour before. so ended my break.

i spent my time in the airport just watching and waiting. a man shook his face quickly, a smile cracking adoringly as he attempted to entertain the 6 month old baby attached to his side. his blonde companion stood blankly to the side, watching the carousel whir, dark roots surrounding the crown of her head, just above the begnnings of creases that will only deepen with time.

young teenage girls in black spankie shorts, white calf-high socks, and black shirts that read "Colorado" along the back, bounced along, energetically speaking to their chaperone. "Not-aw, i'm going to be 14 and a half in August!!" i heard one exclaim, as i deciphered the word "volleyball" on one of their duffle bags. though the reason for their visit was already obvious because of their attire and height, which towered far above my own.

there were several men scattered around the carousel, each of them alone with hands stuffed in their pockets. there were no other women traveling alone, waiting or watching.

i shifted my vision to the carousel as the bags finally began to tumble down the shoot and revolve in my direction, i watched as my suitcase came towards me, the second in line. i grabbed the suicase by the side handle, the colorful mardi gras neckclace i'd wrapped around it a little over a month before cutting into my fingers. i shuffled away from carousel B and all of its spectators as a man took his hands out of his pockets and closed in upon the spot i left behind.

the blueshuttle van back to Downtown LA was full of strangers that shared a university in common. there wasn't much to watch, so i thought.

i thought about getting fitted for a skirt for my dance show last semester and being told i have birthing hips, i replied that i thought it ran in my family. my grandmother had 18 children, her mother had 16 (two died after birth). my grandfather's mother at 12 children. my maternal grandmother had only three children, but her mother at 20. i thought about each of them and how longed to meet my great-grandparents, only hoping that my own children will feel the same way about their great-grandparents.

i thought about the week i'd just spent at home and how i wanted nothing more than to still be there.

i thought about the rosary we prayed on wednesday and how wednesday was just a crazy day, but only crazy in the best of ways. how happy my aunt was tell her stories, and how great those stories were. how i regretted not getting to talk to my other aunt who wanted to desperately to talk to me.

i thought about my family and everything i've learned about them in the past two years, how i need to get it all out of my head and into tangible words.

i thought about how when Madyson and Daniel and Arianna and Benjo are my age, i'll be forty years-old.

i thought about my cousin fanito who'd come to visit colorado this weekend. sometimes in my mind i refer to him as tio, as he's the very first grandchild and only 2 years younger than the youngest of the 18. how unexpectedly over-protective he was of me when talking to my mother about my summer study-abroad plans. how he's really trying to take a role of an uncle, but is still very much on our cousin level.

"fijate de los hijos de fanito y genita, para ver si tu llega a ser gente un día" is what my grandmother told my cousin jose en esos ultimos dias. proving that even the most removed from our lives outside of the family, manage to know everything about us. one can only hope that jose took those words to heart.

i thought and i'm still thinking.

two months from today i'll be going to buenos aires.

when i updated on march 3rd i told myself that i was going to update more often, that obviously went reeeeally well. we'll see how i do in april.

love is in a candel's light

And it's only doubts that we're counting On fingers broken long ago, I read with every broken heart we should become More adventurous

2007-03-03T05:04:00.000-08:00

["More Adventurous"/ Rilo Kiley]

and so...

after wednesday i was all but convinced that the world was, in fact, a collection of hateful things, sprouting at strange calculated random from a beautiful setting; an unfortunate outlook for a 20-year-old.

i'm still reeling from wednesday's discovery. i just want to hug her in an effort to make the poison go away. such a family this is. such a saga we live.

_____

after the rezos [daily prayers] on my birthday, in the dominican republic, after mamá's death (that was a lot of set-up that probably could have been done in a more attractive fashion, but see if i care), i leaned against the counter, next to my mother, floating in-and-out of listening to the conversation she was having with a slightly scruffy, very common, village sweller. to be honest, i cant remember a thing either of them said until he leaned in a little closer to say, "you know, this is the type of family people write books about,"afterwhich, sinking back into his uneven stance, nodding confidently in afirmation of his statement; my listening became less selective. my mother chuckled, glanced, then shoved me, asking the man what he meant.

"i'm not an educated man, but there's just something about this family...something about what juanico and chichila were able to do. they were working people, they weren't fancy, but they knew what life was about, they knew what family was about, and you see that here. they did things that people with even the greatest educations stuggle to do: raise a good family...let alone the fact that they were able to do it with 18 children! these two, they were passionate about life, what they had, and what they had to offer their family.

"if everyone else was waking up 5 or 6 am to milk the cows, juanico and chichila would be awake at 4am, before the sun, getting more done than the others would all morning.

"they were good people, people of faith. They prayed the rosary every morning and every night, with all their children in tow....regardless of work or exhaustion, they had, and maintain, their faith. these two, they, somehow, suffered less with 18 than many do with one. they never had any children go to jail, they never had to bury a child, they never had any of those drug dealing kids all around today. And look at you all, here now! all still so united, carrying on the respect and faith that they started. this is something to look to, an example. it's just, the type of thing they should write books about."

by the end of his speech a few more aunts had gathered, nodding and smiling at the man's torres-worship.

"well, you know, this is my daughter, she's actually writing a book about this family," beamed out of my mother's mouth as she gave me a harder shove than before. i smiled and nodded, looking around the room to see more of my cousins, aunts, and strangers scattered around the kitchen, the same smiles confirming me as the public offering.

the man wagged his finger in my direction, "well, you should, and i'm glad you are. you're doing something bigger and greater than even you know."

_____

and so...

funny how life happens.

today [friday] i found out that i was accepted to study in Buenos Aires this summer. we'll be studying in Buenos Aires with trips to neighboring city, Monetvideo, Uruguay and a week stay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. we (me and my roommate, who is also coming) are also hoping to go take advantage of the cheap airfare and go to Santiago de Chile for a weekend. i'll be there from Mid-May to early July. i want to go to the dominican republic afterwards (i always want to go to the dominican republic), my father said yes, my mother said no.....that would be expected being that my father loves everything dominican republic related and mother simply does not, saying "to do what??"

i gave in the application two days after getting back from the dominican repubic. i made the sign of the cross on the envelope, kissed it, said a padre nuestro followed by a santa maría, and told my grandparents that i wanted this and to help me if they could. thank you.

i'm so excited about this, i have no words to express it. it's just a beautiful thing, actually having something to look foward to. having something to lose myself in. something after so much wandering.

i feel like i just got all emo, but i swear, i'm happy. i like to think papá is proud because he loved to travel, meet new people, learn from those places and people, believe in bigger things. i like to think i'm just continuing what he started, i like to think that the people i meet, also meet him. weird, but true. i like to think mamá is proud because i'm not giving up, i have everything she didnt, but i remember her with everything i receive.

i'm excited. i cant believe it. after i found out i was literally shaking, i was so excited....i could hardly get my finger to press the speed-dial to call my parents. this is good, life will become better. because, algo pasa y la vida continúa.....it does not continue to discard of, or abandon, what happened, but because of, and in some ways, with what happened.<---that sentence there is obviously a result of my insanity due-to-excitment-and-exhaustion, because that didnt make any sense, hah.

love is how we continue

Algo pasa y la vida continúa.

2007-02-28T23:59:00.000-08:00

[A "La Sebastiana"/ Pablo Neruda]

3 weeks since it happened, yet today my family suffered another blow. it's difficult to understand, it's difficult to stare in the face, but you just do.

a sentence that frequently passes between mine and karla's lips is "what people don't understand, is that when something happens to one person in this family, it happens to everyone."

to be continued...

You gotta be out there, You gotta be somewhere, I'm not always strong, Oh, I need you here, Are you listening? I'm lost in the crowd It's getting loud

2007-02-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

["Hear Me"/ Kelly Clarkson]

When my grandmother was very sick in May, she said she wanted to be buried in her parents' tomb, not our family tomb. it was a big upset in the family.

a few days before she died last week she told my tia sccorro that she wanted to be buried next to my grandfather in our family tomb. my aunt asked her why she originally said she didnt want to be buried there and mamá responded, "i didn't want to be alone and never thought that juanico would die before me."

i started this post on thursday, i think. i have so much to say and no words to say it with. i spend my time thinking about it, about her, about the family, everytime remembering a new detail.

so....so many things happened surrounding my grandmother's death. so many things just fell into their places in ways that are entirely inexplicable. that's what i sit around and think about. there were certainly those elements involved in my grandfather's deathas well. remember he and i were planning a 3 week trip to the dominican republic? he bought my ticket and was going to show me everything he told me stories about; we were going to continue where we left off in summer '05. i bought my ticket to ny right after he bought my ticket to the DR. i was to spend a week in nyc before going down the to the dominican rep. i told my grandfather "dont you leave without me!" he didnt. we both went to the dominican republic together, i used the ticket he bought me, he didnt use his. if he hadnt bought me that ticket, i wouldnt have been able to go bury him. and that week i spent in new york was the last week of his life. i'm still fascinated by that.

similar things happened surrounding mamá's death. i spoke to my grandmother the friday she was let out of the hosptial. she asked me when i was going to go visit her, i told her that i'd originally planned to go to nyc for my birthday in two weeks to go see her...she told me that if i was palnning to see her that weekend i'd have to go to Inoa (our village in the DR) to go see her. i did.

though, little did i know during that conversation i'd go see her the next day. my mother called me in the morning, crying, telling me she'd just spoken to my grandmother, that she wanted me to, and that i should go, see my grandmother one last time. she didnt tell me, but she'd already spoken to my aunts in ny and they also wanted me to go...she didn't want that to affect my decision. she told me to check the plane tickets for the next few flights out of LAX to JFK, to see how much the cost and if it was feasible.

i have a tendency just check flights when i'm bored. i'm always going somewhere, or want to go somewhere. since, i'd been planning to go to nyc for my birthday i knew how much that ticket would cost, and sometimes i'd daydream and see how much it would cost to leave that very day to nyc. i mean, i never thought i'd be one of those people, i'm not rich, i dont tend to travel with urgency.....though, i check on random occasions anyway. all those other times i'd checked, to leave to nyc from lax that very day would cost anywhere from 700-900 dollars, so i knew it wasnt going to be cheap on that saturday, i knew what to expect, but i held my breath and checked anyway. i knew we didnt have the money to spend practically a thousand dollars on a flight, but i just check to see if maybe it was a little cheaper. on that one saturday any flight i would take out that afternoon would cost alittle less than $300, the same amount it would have cost to go to nyc on my birthday two weeks later. it was inexplicable, but entirely possible. i dont understand how that happened, but i forever grateful that it did. i've checked on other random days since and it's always 7-900 dollars, even for the day i had to buy the ticket to nyc then santiago. but because of that trip, the last thing my grandmother said to me, while holding me tightly, was "thank you for coming to see me."

i've been back a week, but i feel like it's been a minute. she died almost two weeks ago but it seems like an hour.

i've taken this hard. harder than even i expected. i've cried a lot, even more than when my grandfather died. i feel like in this, i'm mourning both of them. in this i'm beginning to realize what i never had and what i never will have.

i never lived in the dominican republic and as a child i knew my mother's parents better because they came to stay with us when they came to the states.

i began getting to know my father's parents probably a little more than 5 years ago, and really getting to know them in depth in the last 3 years. i've had an amazing last few years with them and i quite literally feel robbed of the years we could have had, that makes me cry the most. that and the fact that they loved me so much, but i never felt very deserving of the love and they never felt very deserving of my awe. they loved me from the beginning, even when i didnt know them. even when i was just Geno y Esperanza's daughter with fumbling spanish and a confused interest in their world. They loved me when i told them i was going to college and hoped to make them proud, they said they already were, just keep going. they appreciated my passion for them and their lives, even though the didnt understand why i felt it. they just loved me, never needing to know more, even though they didnt know who i was....they knew everything about who i was. i spent so much time trying to get across to them how much i loved them and respected them and was just so proud of them and their lives, hoping that one day they would realize that what i said was true. im happy that with each, i had my moment where i knew they understood what i was saying, what i was pointing at, and that i understood why they loved me. im going to miss that feeling of being in their presence, i know they're around, i know they're watching, but i'm going to miss that feeling. i know that as i sit here with tears gliding down my cheeks, they see me, they dont want me to cry, that we had all the times God would permit, but i cant help it.

love is so much of what's within me

expresar imposible seria, lo que pasa dentro, lo que el alma siente, expresar imposible seria, el reir por dentro, y el llorar alegre

2007-02-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

hoy es dia muy grande en tu vida
un momento sagrado y solemne
expresar imposible seria
lo que pasa dentro
lo que el alma siente
expresar imposible seria
el reir por dentro
y el llorar alegre

un corazón se dió, se da, y se dará para siempre
y el galardón será al final, más allá de la muerte
más allá de la muerte

tu corona es de rosas y de espinas
que hoy adornan tu vida y tu frente

expresar imposible seria
lo que pasa dentro
lo que el alma siente

otra etapa comienza en tu vida
la más dura, más brava, y valiente

expresar imposible seria
lo que pasa dentro
lo que el alma siente
expresar imposible seria
el reir por dentro
y el llorar alegre

["el galardón"]

so. that just made me sob uncontrollably. i just sang it on the phone with my mom, we didnt get past the first "expresar imposible seria". i was one of mamá's favorite songs, it so beautifully illustrates her and death and mourning. now i'm crying again. i miss her. i miss papá. i miss.

thank you for all of your kind words, thoughts, and prayers.

i got back last night, so very tired.

i'm not feeling very chatty, so i'm just going to post the pictures and talk about them as i go.

so, mamá died at 2:50pm dominican republic time which is 1:50pm ny time, 11:50am colorado time and 10:50am california time.

my tía soccorro, who was there, called my dad to let him know. my dad then proceeded to make the calls. he call me, but i didnt pick up.

i was at work, where i get no signal...at close to 11:30am i get an urgent IM from nataly, for me to calll her immediately. at that point i knew. i ran upstairs and called nat. she told me. i began catching quick breaths, followed by a tightness in my throat. i looked around, i was, in fact, in los angeles, and ik had to get to the domninican republic. i hung up, ran downstairs, got my things, then ran back up and called my father one my way to my apartment. i told him i knew, he told me this wasnt a time for crying, i wasnt. i talked about our plans and how i was going to get to new york. i had to meet my mother in new york because she had my passport. i fumbled around, transfering all my black clothing from my suitcase to my carryon, i didnt want to waste time checking luggage.

i called to reserve my flight on the way to the airport.

when i got to ny, i was picked up and broght to my mother and brother and we then went to a cousin's apartment to sleep to then catch our 6am flight to santiago. i didnt sleep. there were 25 members of my family on that flight, we needed to get there before took mamá out of the house. the plane was delayed 2 hours.

during the flight we all chatted , my tía magdalena tried organizing a rosary prayer, i was so tired i couldnt even deal with the rosary, she was sitting next to me.

they ran out of breakfasts by the time they got to the last two rows. i was sitting in the second to last row. i was about to smack the flight attdendant when they ran out of breakfast then gave me attitude. bitch.

at one point in the flight 11 or 12 of us got together in the exit row....they soon made us move.

my brother took a picture of me on the plane

on the way down to the hacienda, the monumento en santiago (i took it without the window down, so the window was dirty)

okay. so. now.

we were the first to arrive at the house (me, my mom, and my brother), of those of us that came in on that flight [we were the last members of the family to arrive]. i was the first to go in. i made my brother hold my hand. i cried. a lot. a lot. a lot. she looked beautiful. i couldnt touch her. i couldnt touch papá either. there were yellow roses all around her, they were her favorite flower. i cried so much. just open vocal sobs. several of my cousins and a few of my aunts would turn to another family member mid-sob and say "ya estamos solo", we'd all cry even more. they were more calm this time around. i wasnt. i dont know, it was just so much. i just couldnt believe it. the last thing she ever said to me was "gracias por venirme a ver". typing that just made tears well up. i love them so much.

so i began taking pictures as they took her out of the house. the grandsons and tío manuelito (my grandfather's brother) took her out of the house and handed her to the sons who took her down the front steps into the ambulence which took the casket up to las matas (the town where the funeral and burial were to be held, remember we're campo folk). pictures...

closing the casket

grandsons and tío manuelito

tía gisela waiting at the base of the stairs

the sons

her children. her house.

her children carry her as some of her grandchildren look on from the top of the stairs

into the ambulance

she was in the ambulance. tía tila and andres's faces, killing me.

at that point i lost my mind again and tío manuelito came to console me, which just meade me cry even more.

the caravan of cars going up to las matas to the church. the ambulance is the white up front. in front of our car:

behind our car:

the sons bringing her into the church

children wheeling her down the aisle with fanito, the oldest grandnchild, leading with the cross

another shot of the kids

ay, mamá.

maxima arranged for everyone to have a rose. my dad put his rose down, i took a picture because he was right by the casket.

todos levantaron su rosa

as the casket was taken out, everybody lifted their rose towards her

wheeling her out, tía gisela leading the way, rose against cross.

and so we carried her out of the church...

and into the streets...

two children, two grand children, and a great-granchild

i carried the casket twice, the second time my brother caught it. me and maxima were the only girls to carry it.

we sang hymns as we walked. here we're singing "ven con nosotros a caminar, santa maría ven", one we all know very well here at Breathe. it's only 5 seconds long.

my brother took a few pictures, but i'm a bit of a camera hog, so i quickly took it back.

so i was trying to upload a picture of my grandfather when he took the leading corona, but it's not letting me. =( that broke my heart one: because he's my only grandfather left and two: because and my dad's mother were cousins. he was so sad. ugh.

my brother took the corona from when he started to struggle a bit.

contintued in next post.

expresar cont'td

2007-02-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

blogger wasnt letting me post any pictures on that post..

going into the cemetary

my cousin maxima lifted her roses and began to cry

people threw rose petals onto the casket as they put it in the tomb

tío pito started a padre nuestro

adios mamá.

mis abuelos

love is más alla de la muerte

When Jesus Christ was nailed to his tree, said "oh, Daddy-o, I can see how it all soon will be I came to shed a little light on this darkening scene"

2007-02-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

[dave matthews/ "christmas song"]

my grandmother passed away today, i'll be in the DR through my bday into early next week.

thank you for all your support and well wishes.

love is what i came for

We're angry not afraid, Like breathing just to breathe, we might find some reason

2007-02-05T00:10:00.000-08:00

["You Never Know"/ Dave Matthews Band]

death is all around they say. it spikes a chill and smothers in heat.

my roommate's grandfather passed away. ugh, sad. i didnt know him, but i know his son and granddaughter.

we're surrounded by life, the say, but sometimes it's just difficult to live it.

and so...we wait. that is all we do. everytime the phone rings, and it's one of my parents, i hold my breath. we. just. wait. my family stands still as my grandmother wails and chokes on her own breath. we wait.

while i was home in december, my father asked me what i was planning to do after i graduate. i suppose i'm going to have to get a job of sorts. i told him i was planning on moving to new york, he look at me as if i'd said i was planning on moving to Kenya....."why would you want to do that?" i then suggested him i might want to move somewhere outside of the country and that really got me a lovely glare. i hate it when he does that. they all do it, you could ask karla and nataly for their own stories. anything outside of their realm of possibility and expectations is terrible and will obviously fail. they're a lovely bunch, i tell ya.

17 of the them were there, in the dominican rep, after the whole tuesday night debaucle. i wish i could have been there. appanretly and unt and uncle of mine, the two that went with my grandmother originally on that sunday, said i should have been there. that they wanted to take me with them. that makes me feel [insert mildly positive adjective]. like maybe, sometimes, the family notices.....especially considering the aunt it came from. but in the end, i couldnt be there.

school is cranking up to speed, papers and tests and such.....joy.

i age this weekend.

love stands between the words i tell you

Come on in, I've got to tell you what a state I'm in...When the truth is I miss you

2007-01-31T10:46:00.000-08:00

["A Warning Sign"/ Coldplay]

so.....i was going to post a week ago, but then life happened. dont you hate that?

last wednesday i was minding my life as usual only to find out in the late evening that my grandmother was being rushed to the hospital in ny. my aunt that was currently visiting Colorado was on the first flight back to ny, and the family was stirring. okay.

i need to preface this story by mentioning that i am well aware of the fact that my family is crazy. that's why they've earned a book, they're crazy to the point that outsiders are left in curious bewilderment. my parents save their craziness for extreme situations, so when they go crazy, i know it is, in fact, okay for me to go ahead and pull my Torres Crazy Cards. Though, i have been known to pull my TCC earlier than my parents due to my fits of passion. and so, we continue......

Thursday, my life in Los Angeles continues. I dont give too much thought to my grandmother in the hospital, simply because it has happened so many times before and the usual people were overreacting, so things still seemed fine. I make and receeive calls during that day that change my mood, but ultimately just confuse me. With such a large family, information gets twisted and pulled and painted in so many directions and ways, that as a lowly granchild 3000 miles away, i'm left with nothing but 5th hand information. So i called my uncle who works in medicine, the source, because he'd tell it to me straight. His info calmed me somwhate, but he seemed stilfed and not tell the whoel story, but i attributed that to the rest of my family being crazy.

I leveled off my evening balancing several calls between Karla, Nataly, Gabi, and my mother. okay.

I dont remember much of friday. The information was worse, and my grandmother was being sent home from the hospital with hospice. the doctors told my aunts an uncles that as my grandmother refused/was so bad she wasnt even eligible for the two forms of treatment needed, she'd die. remember, doctors always say she's going to die.

the family planned to send her to the dominican republic as soon as possible, if she's going to die, she's going to die in her house. they intended to send her on saturday.

i called my grandmother on friday. she was happy to hear from me, and the many other concerned family members calling and visiting. She asked me when i was going to go visit. I told i was plannign on two weeks later for my birthday, but now i was unsure. She told me that if i were leavign then, i'd have to visit her in the DR, which would be better anyway. She asked me when i would be dont with those estudios, because she'd like to spend time with me. We continued joking as usual until a let her go.

I spent the rest of my night talking on im with my cousins and watching Clueless and Shakespeare in Love until 5am. Exciting, right?

I had to do some choreography with Kamilah at 10, so i was not very excited to have to wake up and all, but whatever, i set my alarms.

come morning....i turn off my alarms, as usual. but i get a couple of phone calls from kamilah and another from my mother. I call my mother back immediately after she called me. My mother was crying. "I spoke to Mariana and your grandmother, i want you to go see her before she leaves for Santo Domingo tomorrow morning." oh, kay. so i spent the next hour trying to find a ticket for the next feasible plane out to JFK. I wasnt really sure what to do, should i spend the money? I called my father and he told me not to go. I told my mother to call my aunts in ny that were with my grandmother to ask what they thought, she refused and told me to call. so i did. my grandmother told me to come and my aunts lined one of my uncles up to pick me up at the airport. Kamilah got to my apartment to dance, but ended up driving me to the airport.

my mother didnt tell me before i bought the ticket, but the reason she refused to call was because my granmother and aunt had already told her i should go, she just didnt want to influence my decision. She also told me that my grandmother had a really terrible night friday night. my mom is a crazy little lady.

i left LAX at 1:20pm and got into JFK at 9:10pm. my uncle went to pick me up, and we went to jefferson ave. many of my cousins and aunts and uncles stayed there, waitin g for my arrival. my grandmother stayed awake. i set down my bags, said my hellos, and slid back into my grandmother's room. my grandmother looks up and sees me, "Pero tu si vuela pronto!" i sat down, we joked and laughed, sat in silence in smiled. it was so worth it.

my grandmother had to go to bed son after, i stayed up for a while, as it was only 8:30 for me.....but i had to sleep soon. I woke up at 5:30am, 2:30am pst, to help my aunts get my grandmother ready for her trip. I went with my aunts and uncles to the airport to take my grandmother. My grandmother was laughing, happy, excited to go back. As the wheeled her away from me, she grabbed my arm, tighter than i expected she could, and said "gracias por venirme a ver". my aunts and cousins who were staying began to cry as i was hurried along, pushed back into the car in which i came.

i got back to the apartment, took a shower, waited for my aunts to go to church, then went into the city. two of my friends were coming down from yale, i needed to see them. we spent a few hours in a starbucks by grand central, followed by wandering around grand central, then up to the natural history museum. i had to get back to brooklyn to spend time with my family, i didnt want to leave my friends, but so went my crazy weekend. the complete lack of functioning trains did not do anything good for my mood.

back in brooklyn, my family had been waiting for an dlooking for me all day, i felt a little bad, but so goes with my family. i went to my cousin Juan Luis's house with the rest of his siblings and mother, where the topic of the night was colorado. one of Juan Luis's brothers just moved to colorado, and they all had something to say about it.

my grandmother arrived to the dominican republic happy and walking. my father called and left me a message saying that. pretty much making the point of making me feel guilty for going to nyc against his wishes because my grandmother is obviously fine (my father is in the DR and has been for the past 3 weeks, resolving issues left after my grandfather died, he's to come back tomorrow).

whatever.

i got back to my aunt's apartment, exhausted. went to bed at 1am to wake up at 5:30, again, to make my own flight back to LA.

i wake up, i get ready, i go to the airport. as i'm walking to the terminal i get a call from one of my cousins' wife, my aunt called from the DR, my grandmother had a terrible night, the aunt that i stayed with was to get on the first plane out to the dominican rep. I called my father, al the sutbborn pride from the message the day before had vanished, he was scared, but in control. he tells me he had to drive to santiago with his brother at 4am to get an oxygen tank. the idea of my uncles speeding along the pitch black dominican mountainsides in fear of their mother dying was a picture that made me a little scared as well. My father told me to go back to LA. my father is not one to play is TCC very early, obviously.

I sat in the terminal crying. what if something happened in the 6 hour plane ride? there was no way of my knowing. i didnt want to get on this plane.

i boarded. we spent two hours sitting on the plane as the fixed something that was wrong. as we were approaching LAX there was a malfunction, so we couldnt land immediately, so we kept going over the pacific. eventually we looped back and wrre able to land, greeted by swarming fire trucks and ambulances....my pilot had to declare an emergency. mi desesperacion crecio.

i called my family immediately after landing. my grandmother was still bad, my aunts in colorado were preparing to leave for the DR on the next flight. ugh.

i went to my class. it was cancelled.

yesterday i woke up searching for updates, she was still bad. her conditioned worsened as the day went on, i went to my classes, one out of the two were cancelled.

during the class that was cancelled, i napped, still exhausted from my weekend travels.

Jessica called and asked if i wanted to go out for dinner, i agreed.

on our way to the restaurant my mother called. "i just spoke with your father, he said he doesnt think your grandmother will make it through the night, he told us to buy our flights to the dominican republic and go." i cried for about a minute, chrissy concoled me. i asked jessica to turn around.

i needed to get to ny before my cousins and mother, because they had my passport. i bought a 9:30pm flight out of LAX and bought a 9:30 am flight to the dominican republic, the same flight my uncles, mother, and nataly would be on. i'd already set aside my luto clothing the night before. jessica and chrissy took me to the airport.

i checked it and got to the terminal. i called nataly to figure out how and where we were going to meet in JFK in the morning. i then called my house.

my brother saide my father just called and said that the family doctor came and said my grandmother had at least 2 more days in her, for us not to go.

you're kidding me, right?

i went to the counter, told the lady my situation had changed and that i had to put my flight on hold. i left the terminal talked to baggage service, my bag was laready scanned for JFK and so there it would go. i called chrissy, who went to pick me up.

if nothing happens today, my father will come back to the US tomorrow as planned. if she passes after that, i will not get to go bury her, even though i still have the ticket.

so goes life.

conclusion: my family is effin' crazy.

love is the arm grab.

Put my hand inside a cloud, took out a shroud and covered my heart. See, I loved Mary more than Jesus and I let her down, it tore me apart

2007-01-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

[Caitlin Crump/ "Too Soon"]

so, i began a post with this title on thursday, but i dont like the story i ended up with. it felt uninspired, despite my love for the subject, so i'm not putting it out here quite yet, i'll have tweak it, or just re-write it completely. i wrote about my trip to the orfanato in La Vega in '05. i recently lost the rosary that they gave me and then the next day my rosary from my grandfather's funeral broke, so i have no more rosaries. i dont know what that means, but it means something.

i'm trying to figure out what i'm going to do this summer, i really have no idea. i'm applying for a few things, one of which i really hope i get.

my birthday is coming up and i'm not sure what i'm going to do, probably nothing.

my brain isn't working right now, i'll probably add to this later when i'm not feeling a complete mental blank

today is six months since july 22.

love es un palabra que es evidente y no lo es

Put my hand inside a cloud, took out a shroud and covered my heart. See, I loved Mary more than Jesus and I let her down, it tore me apart

2007-01-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

[Caitlin Crump/ "Too Soon"]

i moved off the plane with the others, edging forward, a scene so familiar, something I'd gotten so used to in the previous years. The difference this time was that everyone on this plane resembled me and i was nervous. I sucked in air in an effort to calm my muscles that were tightened around my purse and carry-on. finally, i stepped into the white pathway, sunlight warming me on both sides.

whenever i step off the plane in the dominican republic my lungs are filled with a comfortable thickness, a humidity i only love on that island.

this was the first time i'd been to the dominican republic by myself, and i was clueless. my parents always did everything for me, i had no faith in my ability to navigate my way through customs. i asked my father what to do, but he wasn't very helpful, "just walk around, follow the signs and the people, you wont get lost."

me: "But, papi, what about those papers you and mami fill out whenever we go?"

papi: "Yeah, they're on the way, dont worry, you'll find it."

me: "but, what do i do? where do i say i'm staying?"

papi:"come on carolina, you know what to say, it doesnt matter anyway."

me: "papi, i'm going to get kidnapped and killed because of you."

papi:"who's going to want kill you? you're crazy, i have to go, here's your mother..."

And so, along i walked with rest of my travelers. i looked for the white people, they were clearly tourists and would have to fill out the paper work. I found them, found the papers, filled them out to the best of my knowledge, and continued along the crazy route. after nearly losing my mind with the customs people and getting my bags together i made my way through the airport and stared at all the faces as i emerged from the doors to the outside world. A girl next to me shrieked and a matching shriek was found in the crowd, followed by running and flailing arms.
some more arms flapped around me as the faces in the crowd animated or frowned in disappointment, but none of the faces were the familiar faces of Chino and Dulce. what now?
there existed no convenience of calling them on a cell phone and my father told me that i had to stay inside the airport, no matter what. i walked outside to see if i could see the black pick-up truck Chino came to America to buy when i was a child, my search was cut short as once i stepped outside the taxistas pounced. i went back inside and searched for a phone. i didnt even have a lista (list of telephone numbers my family publishes about twice a year). I opened the book i was reading on the plane, where on the first page i'd scribbled "Chino cell" with his phone number while my parents drove me to my uncle's house the day before.

okay, so, a phone.

but this won't work now the way it once did

2007-01-16T23:29:00.000-08:00

["Precious Illusions"/ Alanis Morisette]

so, two years ago today, i started this blog. it was winter term and my senior year at lawrenceville. i was convinces i wasnt going to get into college. i'd just begun wriiting again, and begun earning praise for it.

the blogger community from back then has semed to disappear, leaving very little motivation to update. nobody is around anymore, nobody comments....dont you realize that there is a bit fo narcism that comes along with these blogs? i mean damn, i'm a whiney, angsty teen.

and it's not even like there are many lurkers, i hardly get any hits. i dont update as much.....it is clear from the 2005/2006 difference in post volume.

i mean, it's okay.....life is very different from two years ago.

i already feel ike 2006 is very far away....not so much because 2007 has been all that great, it's just been another two weeks to add to my lifetime. though, there have been some lovely moments....nothing of the fantastic variety that i need to distance myself from 2006. meh, it doesnt really matter.

in other news,i'm taking a class on africa, and it is purely amazing.

this is a very poitnless post, but it needed to be done, as it's Breathe's anniversary.

A la primera persona que me ayude a comprender, pienso entregarle mi tiempo, pienso entregarle mi fe,

2007-01-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

[Alejandro Sanz/ "A la Primera Persona"]

hiii
time to lighten the mood around here.

i went to the People's Choice Awards on Tuesday...it was a ton a fun.

isaiah washington shook my hand.
as did eva longoria.
eva longoria is a lot prettier in person (i never knew what the big fuss about her was, but now that ive seen her in person, i think she's pretty)
I shared several moments with halle berry. she acknowledged my presence many times. her manager winked at me a lot. it was amusing.
i flirted with the guy from numb3rs.....i dont know his name.....David Krumholtz [just imdbed him]...he's cute. and i'm cute...let's get real.
i almost got to shake keifer sutherland's hand.
jennifer aniston is fug and has put on some weight. and she had a tacky dress which she claimed was versace (or was it cavalli?), but i think she got at Rainbow or Mandee. very cute shoes though.
vince vaughn looked plain haggard, ugh.
a paparrazzi took a picture of me, and jess, with john ritter's son....i'm obviously fabulous....look for me in people magazine, yall!
halle berry is plain radiant. she's much prettier in person than she is on film, can you believe that?
dr.mcdreamy (patrick dempsey) is purely amazing. his hair is glorious. omg. i love him.
mcsteamy is not as hot at mcdreamy, but this is my own preference.
katherine heigl is gorgeous....but her dress was far too jessica mcklintock, come on girl!
i expected ellen pompeo to be skinnier. her face is tiny. meh....i dont care much for her.
sandra oh is very pretty, i dont care what anybody says.
kate walsh is plain goregous. her dress was beautiful.
sara ramirez is soooo pretty.
TR Knight is sooo cute, i love him.
i spoke to queen latifah, she's plain fabulous.
Cameron Diaz is amazing. i love her. she's so cute. i like her all that much prior to this, but now i love her. her dressed looked much better in person, trust me.
Charlie Sheen is scary looking. like really.
the cast of ugly betty is amazing.
the dad is so cute and nice and his wife is very pretty. aaannd i love him.
Michael Urie, Becki Newton, and Ashley Jensen are fabulous. i love them. so much. they were so nice. and another photographer person took a picture of us with them then gave us his card and i emailed him to get the picture.

i did my ugly smile because i was just that excited, because i friggin love ugly betty and they were actually talking to us and really nice.........aaaaand did you guys see tonight's episode?? omfg, so novela-fab!!!!! américa wasnt there. loser. if she were there i would have told her that she and i have the same major and have a few of the same classes left, which means that we should take them together and be bffs, or i just would have thought it. neeways....my ugly smile, but amazing picture because of michael, becki, and ashley....

i think that's all from my pca adventure, if i remember more, i'll let ya know. and i was on tv, at the awards, so if you missed me.....so sad.

and now....for one of those random questionaires, just for the hell of it....

1. What is your middle name?
dont have one. though i think i'm just going to start using "jacinta"

2.How big is your bed?
school: twin (hurrah university-owned apartments), home: full or queen or something

3. What are you listening to right now?
"princesa" frank reyes......this is like...my jam right now, for realies.

4. What are the last 4 digits in your cellphone number?
erm....7340...i think.

5. What was the last thing you ate?
baby carrot

6. Last person you hugged?
um....good question....maybe chrissy, actually.

7. How is the weather right now?
cold.....for LA.

8. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
um....nataly. (this just made me realize that i havent spoken to anyone on the phone today [thursday]...and that's not strange....i'm a bit of a loser.)

9. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
eyes.

10. Favorite type of Food?
colorful....foood in general.

11. Do you want children?
someday, indeed.

13. Ever get so drunk you don't remember the entire night?
no.

14. Hair color?
dark brown with aubruny highlights

15. Eye color?
dark brown.

16. Do you wear eye contacts?
yeah, for my horrible vision.

17. Favorite holiday?
um....my birthday, xmas...really any day that is happy.

18. Favorite Season?
spring and fall and sometimes summer.

19. Have you ever cried over a boy/girl?
yah

20. Last Movie you watched, Who was it with?
west side story with jessica (she had never seen it!!!)

29. What books are you reading?
ugh....several....but the real questions should be asked about the one that i'm writing.

31. Favorite Movie?
pfft. i dont have a favorite movie.

32. Favorite college football team?
is this a trick question?
USC Trojans, dont hate.

33. What were you doing before filling this out?
writing about going to the people's choice award's/watching leno/talking to jessica as she fell asleep.

34. Any pets?
no =(

35. AIM?
oui

36. Dogs or cats
CATS. but i cant deny a cute dog. i really, really want a bulldog.

38. Favorite Flower?
hm. a bunch of different kinds. not the hugest fan of roses.

40. Have you ever loved someone?
oui

41. Who would you like to see right now?
umm....papá juanico, mamá chichila, papá miguelito y mamá prieto. and mariana. and tío manuelito

43. Have you ever fired a gun?
i sure have, many times.

44. Do you like to travel by plane?
ergh. i like to travel. i dont like airplanes.

45. Right-handed or Left-handed?
right

46. If you could go to any place right now where would you go?
ny then santo domingo, but really santo domingo and disappear in inoa.

48. Are you missing someone?
um...yes.

49. Do you have a tattoo?
hah...yes......4/5. (i have four total, but i got a 5 tats, i did one on two seperate occasions, it makes sense....i promise)

50. Do you still watch cartoons on Saturday mornings?
sometimes yes.

51. Are you hiding something from someone?
arent we all?

52. Are you 18?
no sah.

53. What is the wallpaper on your cellphone?
me on nye, being weird.

54. Did you get enough sleep last night?
oddly enough, yes.

55. First thing you thought about this morning?
the lyrics to the song that was playing ("querida" my juanga), jessica set the stereo to play in the morning.

56. What do you have handy on your bedside table?
i dont have a bedside table. but at home, on the floor next to my bed, i'll usually have a bunch of books, my cellphone, and my computer.

57. Grilled or Fried?
ummmmm...dunno

58. What makes you unique?
everything you can and cant imagine.

60. Are you afraid of the dark?
no. but lately i've developed an inability to sleep unless it's dark. which is weird and has nothing to do with the question, but i felt i needed to add.

61. Favorite hangout?
village inn. la ramada o galeria o abajo de una mata de mango.

62.Things you cant live without?
my family. the dominican republic. my imagination. my family. my friends. my friends. my memories.

63. First thing you will buy if given $1000.00?
buy a plain ticket to nyc and a one way ticket to the dominican republic

64. Favorite song?
hah.

65. What are you afraid of?
more than i let myself believe.

but you know, whenever i was asked this question before, i think "losing someone i love"....but now that that has happened, i have a different sense of fear.

66. Are you a giver or taker?
both.

67. What are your nicknames?
caro (you know, i actually hate it when people i dont know call me this), carola (the only person that really called me this was my grandfather), oscaro (my other grandfather came up with this one), caroli (my uncle is crazy), lina (a director a really hated used to call me this)....i cant remember anything else, but they exist.

68. What is your dad's middle name?
eugenio

69. What is your mother's middle name?
esperanza

70. Stuck on a deserted island & could bring one thing?
i hate this question.

71. Favorite TV commercial?
pretty much all of the tmobile fav 5 commercials, but mainly the one with the "secert lovers"

72. Who is your cell phone provider?
hah, tmobile.

73. First thing you'll save in a fire?
hm....in past emergency fire evacuation situations, i've grabbed my computer, cell phone, ipod, and wallet, shove it in a bag and run.

74. Favorite color?
green.

75. What is one thing you always bring with you?
um...generally, cell phone and my camera.

76. What did you want to be when you were a kid?
a pediatrcian specializing in neonatal care, seriously...that was the plan up until my junior year of high school.

77. What do you usually do when the clock reads 7:00am?
look at it, then go back to sleep.

78. The color of your bedsheets?
neon green.

79. Who do you want to meet?
papá jose and mamá fefa...and papá juanico 40 years ago. and mamá chichila when she was my age. leonardo da vinci. Agostinho Neto and then Jose Eduardo dos Santos. someone i havent met.

80. What do you think about before you go to bed?
depends.
sometimes "dios te salva maría..."
sometimes "ugh, why can't i fall asleep??"
sometimes about everything i have to do which leads to a ton of stress and a panic attack.
many different things...who knows?

alright everybody, now that you've read about my celeb encounters and the pointless questionaire, i will leave you.

and it's almost my birthday, hurrah. and nyc isnt looking so good, the price is still okay, i just have absolutely no money, and that makes me so sad. i need a benefactor to buy me a ticket, hah.

love is the way they look at you.

Suck the marrow, drain my soul...Everybody asks me how she's doing, Has she really lost her mind?

2006-12-29T01:52:00.000-08:00

[dmb/"pay for what you get"]

i've opened a countless number of these windows in the past month, but i still have nothing to say.

as we drove ian home, i sat in the back, hands wedged in their respective pockets, head tilted towards the middle console, all in a concentrated effort to try and pinpoint what it is that i've been feeling. i came up with "stifled, exhasuted, and restless"....i sometimes exchange "stifled" for "claustrophobic" and "exhausted" with "defeated".....but i think i've settled on those three.

i've thought about transfering recently. not because i dont like USC, i like it well enough, i just need to go back east. i'm not a california girl, i tried. but i hate california carolina. i love my friends, all two of them, they get me through my life, they make me laugh, they understand my quirkiness, my disdain for clubbing and the general drunken college life our peers live by. dont get me wrong, i drink, i dance and all that....just a different sort. chrissy and jessica are amazing people, and i wont leave them. USC is a good school and I wont leave it. i'm just losing my mind. i'm hoping to go to nyc for my birthday to chill out a bit, i doubt it will work out, but i want it to so badly.....if not, i'll have to wait until may.

so i miss papá, what's new? my head is so wrapped up in it all, i want to be done with this book. i think that's what i have to do to be fine.
after i returned from nyc/miami in late may/early june, i sat with my mother and i told her that i missed my grandparents desperately. i told her about how i would comb papá's hair whenever the doorbell rang. i told her that i'd find a baseball game for him to watch at midday, then rest my head on his shoulder as he'd rest his head against mine. i also told her that my grandfather requested that one of his sons find me a job nyc, so that i could live with him and my grandmother in the apartment, at least for the summer. i burst into tears, i missed them so much. i still get teary eyed when i think about when he said that, i hadnt realized that he loved me and needed me as much as i him. we had just finished praying the nightly rosary, i hung his rosary on the wall and sat at the foot of the bed, papá called to one of my aunts to ask her to tell his son that lived across the street to find me a job so that i could stay with him, gesturing out the window to the world, saying it as if it'd be that easy, because he wanted it to happen. and because he wanted it to happen, we made our own plans to spend time in the dominican rep, i told him that he better not leave without me, he said wouldnt, and kept his promise.

my mother shook her head at me as i cried, "dont get too attached to these viejos, you know what's going to happen to them, they're just going to die." i cried harder. papá was my friend.

love is at the bottom of heartache

Break on 2: Latin Fusion (Paso Doble)

2006-12-10T14:11:00.001-08:00


so.....another one of my weak ones...but okay. since i'm sharing.

Break on 2: Latin Fusion (Rumba)

2006-12-08T13:51:00.001-08:00


so this one of my weakest dances, but just because it's cute and to kiss the girl....

watch all the dances!!!

break on 2: latin fusion (Salsa)

2006-12-08T13:38:00.001-08:00


the salsaaaaa i'm in orange.....not that it's very hard to tell.....but whatever.

Break on 2: Latin Fusion (Fever)

2006-12-08T13:16:00.001-08:00


This is the Shag that we did, with a bit of a twist i do a couple splits....

Break on 2: Latin Fusion (Tango) moooooore dance.

2006-12-08T13:15:00.001-08:00


Santa Maria del Buen Aire full tango

Danny and Carolina Rock the Tango

2006-12-04T13:47:00.001-08:00


This is Carolina and I in our solo for the Fall 2006 Break on 2: Latin Fusion dance performance! here's a snipette from the tango from show! me and danny's tango solo, danny is my hero bc he makes me look good. yey! i love us. =)

bailaré

2006-12-03T14:20:00.000-08:00

a real post is coming.
but for now...

big dance show in T- 2.5 hours.

a few pictures from this morning's rehearsal.

=)

i'll be dancing salsa, tango, samba, shag, jive, paso doble, and rumba, along with my lovely break on 2ers.

i'm excited and i wish you all could come see it!

love is found between the curl and the dance step.

UCLA sucks at everything.

2006-11-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

another reason not to go to UCLA, other than that fact that UCLA is terrible:

student getting tazed for no other reason than not showing his id in the library. he was complying with being escorted out of the library, did not threaten the public saftey officers in any way, just asked for them not to touch him....and so they taser the fuck out of him.....between his guttural screams, you can hear him begging for them to stop, also saying that he has a medical condition, and screaming "here's your patriot act".

it's horrifyingly sad.

ucla sucks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JGlvEcPmug

i cant embed it for some reason right now....but watch it.

love is NOT found at UCLA

We were just wasting time let the hours roll by doing nothing for the fun a little taste of the good life whether right or wrong

2006-11-17T06:31:00.000-08:00

["Stay (wasting time)"/ Dave Matthews Band]

this is what i feel like right now:

alas, the sun has just risen.....so i'm going to bed now.
pics up on facebook.

love is how we laugh.

Your day breaks, your mind aches, You find that all her words of kindness linger on , When she no longer needs you

2006-11-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

["for no one"/beatles]

i realy dont have anything to post about, but i feel like posting......so here are some photos that i've found myself looking through.

okay, so i dont know when exactly during the summer this was taken, but i'm assuming June '02. I'd just finished my freshman year of high school and brother had just graudated high school. This is before we sold our house, because my room is still in tact, so it has to be some time in June. My father decided we were going to move to colorado in March and sold his bodega in april. I was excited about the move as it woudl allow me to get to know my colorado cousins, whom i hadnt spent time with in years. but, i was also nervous, because what if being best friends as toddlers wasnt enough to be friends 15 years down the road?

This was also the summer that we went to dominican rep, the first time since the 60th anniversary. That trip provoked my writing my first short story during the fall of my sophmore year. it had all the beginnings of my wiritng now, very descriptive and lyrical, even then i lilked it and enjoyed writing it, i still like it. but, unfortunetly, my teacher hated it, completely panning my writing style, giving me a horrible grad and disparging me resulting in my dropping writing until winter '04. so sad.

my hair looks cute, but i was still awkard, but didnt know it, which is the worst kind of awkward. i still have that john lennon poster, it was hanging next to my desk until two weeks ago when fell and i feel and continue to be too lazy to put it back up. I still have that top and I still get compliments on it.

i started playing guitar winter term of my freshman year....as with everything else i got bored, but can still strum along all the songs i wrote.
i'd just cut my hair and was loving it....can't you tell? march '02. i go through waves where i grow my hair out then cut it. whe i was a kid i ALWAYS wanted short hair, but my mother never let me cut it. she finally let me cut my hair for the first time in 5th grade., i then let it grow long until 8th grade and cut it short again freshman year of high school, then let it grow long for senior year of high school, then cut it freshman year of college, and i'm not growing it long again. it's always about the same, shoulderish length cut. meh....i'll probably cut it again after graduation.
this is my first brithday in our upstate ny house. i've obviously enjoyed being the cente rof attention my entire life.
my first christmas in colorado, xmas '02. i loved it. i loved my cousins, including bitch boy. this is one of the first pictures taken of me where i really did think i was pretty. aw, how sweet. jeez, karina (last on the right) is having a baby now....that's crazy. and thank you gabi for the bunny ears.
xmas '03. this is still one of my favorite pictures of me and nataly. i continued to love my cousins, though, my brother took all of my love this winter.
i thought i was pretty, but only in secret, because i thought i had to be humble or whatever. and i still handt discovered be love for color, so my wearing pink was strange.
i still think gobble's tie is amazing. bitchboy before he was all types of bitchy. and my amazing bother. my amazing, amazing, brother.
thanksgiving '04, makes me want to go home next week. =( i love this picture.
xmas '04. i wrote a few days before this, just started stringing words together and sent them to kalra and she encouraged me and so i kept going with it....that one little 500-word thing suddenly made people tell me i was a writer, but i was confused because i had such a terrible experience because of my sophmore year english teacher, that i didnt really know what to do with it. though, it didnt hurt that one of the people telling me this was alisa valdes-rodriguez. so i started this blog.

that is what i have for you. mmmkay.

love is what you see before you

And the world may be long for you, But'll never belong to you

2006-11-15T00:33:00.000-08:00

["Grace Cathderal Hill"/the decemberists]

just incase you wanted know, and also because geology papers are not my answer for a good time and so therefore merit the fullest of my procrastination abilities, I am now an ordained minister (as is my roommate, we decided to do it together)

i can perform weddings, funerals, and baptisms in the United States.

so if any of you are in need of my services, let me know.

no joke, i'm just that random. i even printed out my credentials, so i'm ready to go at anytime, hah.

thank you all for reading my blog, a special thanks to leslie for her lovely message.

love is the happiness you find in the smiles of friends

Some might tell you there's no hope in hand, Just because they feel hopeless, But you don't have to be a thing like that

2006-11-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

["baby"/Dave Matthews]

This morning, my eyes shot open to notice that the sun was up and it was 19 minutes past my intended wake up time. I was on my left side, facing what would be a view of the downtown LA skyline, if I weren’t on the top bunk. I stared at the white wall for all of about 5 seconds, when my lids touched again, only to open 31 min after my intended wake up time. Again, left side, white wall. I found myself wishing I was suddenly paralyzed so that I wouldn’t have to move in that moment. I couldn’t really feel my legs, but that, unfortunately, was due to pure exhaustion, as I soon shifted onto my back, then slid my legs off of the right side of the bed. My left foot made a light thud on the dresser as the ball slid onto the only uncovered piece of wood (I always remember my old ballet teacher in moments like these, “only heavy elephants land on their heels”).

A shower and an on switch later, I was filling my travel mug with coffee and small drip of coconut creamer, stirred with a cinnamon stick. Monday morning coffee is always the most delightful, but this was simply splendid. No, not splendid. Splendid to me indicates a level of delicacy this coffee did not posses, the coffee was….enchantingly transcendent …..or maybe just transcendent …or maybe just really, really ridiculously good. Either way the coffee was amazing and allowed for a morning thought process to begin. Though, it really only made me want to curl up and drink it, rather than take it along on my way to Spanish class.

“Saave room for mah loohve, Saave room for a mooooh-ment to be with me…” I mouthed my favorite song of the day. I was reminded that my boss got married on Saturday and then, in usual girly fashion, began day-dreaming about what my own wedding will be like. I was reminded of the conversation I had with Karla on Thursday, how much we’re both fed up with this, and how lovely it would be to fast-forward all of this to happy times like each of our (the group of 5 best friend cousins of me, Karla, Nataly, Gabi, and my brother) weddings and children. The family simply too hard right now. I’m beginning to miss my Estevez family. That’s the problem with these Torres people, they have every intention of being the most important part of your life, whether you marry-in or are born-in….there’s no room for others. The Eighteen have developed this weird way of only seeing the world in relation to The Eighteen. Everything else is subject to the laws of The Eighteen, be it progeny, government, religion, or even death; this is why they, and their parents, deserve a book, they’re just plain crazy in the most fascinating of ways.

But, weddings, I love them. Mainly because I was raised in a family where the members come in abundance, which means there’s always someone getting hitched, thus constantly fueling imagination and wedding dreams. I used to want a puffy, off-the-shoulder dress inspired by the Torres weddings of the 90s—though I never wanted anything involved the sheer-white fabric, or plasticy beading those weddings put on display, as, even at 8 years-old, I knew that was tacky.

And so…Spanish class. I spend my time being lost and found between the broken Spanish phrases of others, every once and while nodding, or chiming in with a remark I know only the teacher and girl next to me will understand. The girl next to me is a native speaker, something that no matter how much I claim to be and wish it to be true, I will never really be. I fake it beautifully, that’s part of my reason for landing in this Spanish classroom. I’m trying to prove that I can speak Spanish. To whom, you may ask? Why, The Eighteen, of course. Siempre. Los de Geno y Esperanza no hablan Español.

It’s my own fault, I could have cared sooner. I actually wish I cared sooner. I wish that everday. I rejected Spanish my entire life. I didn’t like it when my parnet spoke to me in it, I certainly never responded in it, even when my parents begged. “English!”, I’d say, “Speak to me in English!” They wouldn’t, and still dont, thank God. That’s what I get for not spending my formative of formative years in nyc. That’s the price I pay for my parents’ sacrificing to raise their children in the definition of middle-America suburb. That’s the price I pay for opportunity. But, even in opportunity and success, they find flaws, because in the end los de Geno y Esperanza no hablan Español. And eso es suficiente to make a girl dive deeper into the people, finding acceptence where she least expected it, find out she could write, and add a Spanish major.

Instead of starting out caring about, loving and being fully embraced by my family, only to leave it, resulting in feeling foreign within my own family, as is what usually happens with those outside The Eighteen, I’ve been spending the last few years fighting the feeling of being an extranjero, when it would have been to so much easier to remain one. I care now. I love now. I embrace now. I feel at home now. They will too, about me, someday.

We all have this battle with them, I'm just the one that's wiriting it down.

Love is knowing what you want out of it, but never knowing what you’re going to get

Y en la ingravidez del fondo, Donde se cumplen los seuños, se juntan dos voluntades para cumplir un deseo

2006-11-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

["Mar Adentro" /Ramon Sampedro]

screw my tías.....Happy Birthday Papá!!!!!

a few picture from summer '05 one from this past summer.....i've put them up before, but it's his birthdaaay!

me with both of my papás last summer. this is take one of this photo, and i'm cracking up laughing because papá was being so damn funny. =)

papá showin' me how to make the famous mamá chichila cheese

one of my absolute-favorite pictures of him.....lounging en la ramada, waiting for me to bring him his coffee.
and the last picture that i took of the two of them alone together

i miss you, papá. i wish nothing more than to be able to call you today to wish you a happy birthday. 92 years, we were so lucky.

love is sharing the 10th

Yo tengo los años nuevos, y el hombre los años viejos; el dolor lo lleva adentro, y tiene historia sin tiempo.

2006-11-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

["mi viejo"]

so i'm reading this book Santa Evita by Tomás Eloy Martinez for my dictators class. i'm enjoying it. but i can only read small parts at a time, because it's about the Evita Duarte de Peron (Evita Peron, as she ended up going by).....it deals with her death, but mainly the four corpses and cult following that remained. the mention of corpses and and how life-like they seem not so good for my whole dead grandfather thing.

i'm jealous of everyone that got to go to the ny funeral. i feel so bad for not being able to make it. i hate that couldnt be there. i mean....it would have been worse if i coudlnt go to santo doming to bury him, but missing the ny funeral was terrible. it was the first time everyone else got to see him, i wanted to be there for that....many of my cousins, mainly colorado cousins, hadnt seen him in casi años. i really wish that were ther first time i'd seen him in the coffin.

in those days in between his death and the funeral my tia carmen told all of us around her, finger waving and eyes fixed on everyone at once, "ustedes se van a volver loco cuando vean a papá metido en esa caja." followed by a story from december '99. i knew she was right. because, even though i’d seen him die.....i knew seeing him in the coffin would be a whole 'nother level.

i didnt know what to do with myself. everyone was shuffling around the house murmuring strings of words that i couldnt make out. i flashed my camera about, trying to make it all seem normal. every 5 min or so, one of my aunts would glide by, going to or from my grandparents' room where my grandmother was sleeping. the lights flickered as the empesor battled the generator which battled the fickle electricity. the house was gutted of everything but the family tree and a makeshift picture collage.

the family tree which my father decided we needed in '99, before my grandparents' 60th anniversary. we spent months getting dates and names from aunts and uncles and, others that, apparently, belonged on the tree. my brother had managed to put together a draft, printed sheet by sheet, assembled on our picnic table in the backyard of our brooklyn house. my grandfather sat at the head of the picnic table nodding as my father pointed at the ink-traced paper, floating names i couldnt even recognize.

this family tree hanging in the house is many updates later, August 2004, the last one we printed out, for my grandpraents' 65th anniversary/my grandfather's 90th birthday.

The collage was a project me and my cousin Mary took up earlier that day, in order to pass the time and find the only smiles spread across familiar faces that we would see all week. We went through the photo albums in the house, looking for pictures for the mourners to remember him by. we decided to get pictures of my grandfather marrying off each of his children, or at least as many as we could find. We'd driven into town earlier that day to find poster board, tape and other essentials. while in town, we sat down and had a couple of batidas de lichosa while i explained to her what was up with xavier.

alas....the flash of my camera did nothing other than to solidify the reality that we were all really there. every once and while i'd make my way to the doorway where one of my uncles or cousins would emerge from the pitch-black radius beyond the yellow walls of the house, with an update of where they were. they. "they" were the sixteen car caravan of cars winding around the shadows of the carib mountainsides between Santiago and our mountain village.

all day i heard reports from the ny funeral. how beautiful it was. how life-like he looked. how much everyone cried. how. how. how. how could i have been on an airplane, sitting next to Doña Miranda who lost her husband two days earlier? she spoke no english and was also on her way to the dominican republic to bury a "him" whom she loved. She clutched her book of rezos as i clutched my rosary. she called me her “ángel” and thanked god for sending me to her to help her get through her travels.

i directed her through the terminals in our stop in miami, i stopped and bought her an empanada y un té, i did everything a good angelita would do. as we waited to board our plane to Santiago we ended up sitting next to a chatty man that had lost his sister the day after my papá died. we were a trio of mourners.

Everyone shifted as one of my cousins broke through the surrounding darkness to say, "están cerca." the murmurs became even more indistinguishable as they became louder, but beneath it all i heard the familiar "Dios te slave Maria..." I slipped over to the front porch and stared out into the layered shadows the lay before me. I knew what i was looking at, despite the darkness. there is no darkness like natural darkness, where there is no electricity. to anyone this was just an aphotic void that only daylight could reveal the tin-roofed shacks and donkey-trodden dirt that lie within it. but then....the darkness was broken, as dotted along the shadow's side, i saw two headlights, followed by 30 more, they were here.

The five minutes it takes for a car to get from the mountainside up to the house seemed like fifteen, but sure enough there came one, two, three, four…..then the ambulance. Remember that I mentioned earlier that there were hearses in my lovely village? Well, that’s why we needed to use an ambulance to transport the coffin from the city to the house…an undersized ambulance at that. The other cars continued filing in, around the ambulance, but it was the ambulance that made me want to run up the cerro behind the house and hide in the shadow of a palm tree.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stood directly to the left of the porch opening, my hip against the railing, my arms wrapped around my body, all as I watched the box. The men scurried clumsily out of the house, swarming around the box. Each jammed a hand towards the glossy maple chest as it slid out of the van. It was coming toward me. Each of the men would wriggle one foot in front of the other, bearing the surprisingly heavy weight of the box along the uneven cement laid by the man inside it. He was coming towards me. A brown penumbra slid across the yellow light from the house on my right side, but I did not look at it, I waited outside, shivering.

The murmurs became louder and the Hail Marys more frantic, papa had finally arrived. I waited as they struggled to set it all up, unforeseen problems were resolved and everything was ready. I’d already walked around the house to the kitchen in order to avoid the living room and let them fix all that needed fixing. As I took my position, leaning against the wall, I heard a tia Magdalena-sounding voice split the murmurs with “Mientras recorres la vida, tu nunca solo estás…” A wrenching blow shook my body and memory, the song we sang to my grandfather in those minutes before I watched his lose all animation and I felt his hand let go of what he’d spent all day holding on to. I was dizzied by the reality in which I’d suddenly found myself, furthered by my noticing what I had spent the last 20 min avoiding to observe, the coffin with my viejito lying inside, in the next room. My movements became frantic even though I knew I was standing still, I saw my mother in the back of the kitchen and I immediately pushed past everyone to bury my head in her shoulder, only to get up within the minute….i needed to see him.

Next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a body that looked very much like my grandfather sleeping. This wasn’t the body I saw on Saturday. This man must have been sleeping, there was a light about him that I’d seen leave, but was suddenly back again. I’d walked up to the casket, my body now pressed against the wood only to realize that it was my grandfather. He was holding a rosary and a red rose, a beautiful red tie wrapped around his neck, he was my grandfather. I found my hand reaching out toward the body, about to slick back his hair…but his hair was perfect. They combed his hair. I always used to comb his hair. I always grabbed the comb out of his breast pocket and slid his soft pepper waves back along his head, it was my little act of cariño throughout our days together.

My hand never got to his hair because the wrenching pangs of reality shot the hand back to my side as I ran away sobbing, falling into Nataly.

El nos hace falta.

Love is hidden in the shadows

obababababama love

2006-10-31T23:48:00.000-08:00

as i mentioned earlier, barack obama came to speak and support phil angelides (democratic gubernatorial candidate here in cali......he who is trying to dethrown the governator)....and, i love him.

i'm just going to post a few pictures to help spread the obama love. i was planning on also posting his speech, which i recorded, but i'm having some technical difficulties, so for now.....just admire his charasmatic smile and rockin' obama-ness.

where it all went down. i soon moved to a better vanatge point ....by better, i mean closer to obama.

everyone wants a picture of obama.....even that guy up in Doheny.

i was surrounded by people holding up either his book or the Time mag. it was just cool.

o-ba-ma, bitches.

it was getting hot, so obama had to strip. it was almost tme for him to speak...whew.

angelides thinks they were taking his picture....but...obama.

it's. o. bama. time.

so yeah.....i'll see what i can do about the video footage.

love is love, no matter how you look at it

look to me mientras el mundo esta cambiando, look to me and you'll never wonder where to go

2006-10-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

[John Torres sang it on October 29 at the LA Cancer Challenge] i'm pretty sure i'm wrong on the "where to go part", but i know it's "never wonder..." but....go with it. heh.

so that whole experience was intense. yesterday i ran in the LA Cancer challenge benefitting the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancretic Cancer Research, thank again to all of those who donated. it was just so sad. it was intense to be surrounded by so many people that understood how fast pancreatic cancer hits, it just killed me. i'd been sad from the weekend before when it was the three-month-day since his death, so this just put me over the egde. They had this singer, John Torres, sing this beautiful song in honor of a lady who died of pancreatic cancer in June, she'd been living with it for 3 years, which is unheard of for pancreatic cancer. it was so so so sad. i missed him so much. tears were just cascading down my face, one after the other, no matter how much i tried to swipe them away, they just kept coming. and then i didnt have anyone there with me, which was terrible. i just wanted a shoulder to rest on, so that i was just a girl standing there staring at the screen sobbing.

last week was so rough. wednesday was horrible, just unimaginably paralyzing. god forbid i'm ever successful and my name become recognizable on any level because he's going to come up and try and ruin me, and that scares me. he's already ruining my normal days. i hate it all. and now i'm crying. shit. you know.....after it happened i actually wanted to tell my grandfather more than my parents. i mean, i didnt want to burden him, but there was just something about the way he cared about me.

thursday was better because of the fundraiser and the dance peeps, i love 'em.

friday was nice because barack obama came to speak and he's simply amazing.

saturday i went to go see saw 3......it's bueno.

saturday was a lot of fun because i love getting dressed up and hanging with jessica and her family was really fun/funny.

i'm doing terribly in my classes (or, really just Geology, but it's still going to bring my gpa down) this semester so i could pretty much count on them never letting me go abroad....unless i write a book or something....that'd make me look attractive.

i apologize for the complete lack of updates/depressive mood that has overtaken my blog.....i'm just spent.

love is outside of where i find myself

Seen a shooting star tonight And I thought of you.

2006-10-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

You were trying to break into another world
A world I never knew.
I always kind of wondered
If you ever made it through.
Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.
["Shooting Star"/Bob Dylan]

three months ago to the minute, i was standing by a hospital bed in a crowded holding room of a Queens hospital, my head resting on my arms that were folded over the side handle of the bed, trying to rest my back after hours of standing. i was gazing at my grandmother, her face swollen, the rims of her eyes red, she'd close her eyes for long periods of time, but i knew she couldnt sleep. she periodcally padded her face with a tissue firmly planted in her left hand, neither of us acknowledged the fact that she was crying.

what a miserable day. i dont know how i did that. that day was the biggest haze i've ever experienced. i had no idea what was going on, but i was the person in charge, making decisions, talking to doctors, fighting with nurses, and protecting my grandmother. i spent the day being consumed, with not my own, but my grandmother's grief. 67 years with a compassionate, funny, friendly man who turned out to be a little two faced around the edges. 67 years of falling in and out of love for the sake of the children and tradition. 67 years, and no one told you it could end and you'd be the one still standing.

my grandfather's birthday is in a couple of weeks. it'll be exactly three months until my birthday.

in May '05, just before i graduated high school, i sat next to him and told him that i was about to graduate and go to college in california (it was the day after i decided to come to USC). he nodded, with one hand on his cane and told, "Si, Carola, sigue así, nadie te puede quitar su educacion. sabes que si tu me necesitas, llamame. no tiene que llamar a geno ni nadie, llamame, y yo te ayudo como puedo. no importa si estoy en santo domingo, por que si to me necesitas, aunqu si sea in California o cualquier sitio yo te voy a ayudar. Sigue así, Carola" and so, at that point i decided i needed to spend more time with him and i went to dominican republic 3 weeks later, as you all know.

and so....on we go.

my dad is planning to go to the dominican rep for 3 weeks in the beginning of '07. he really wants to take me, and i want to go more than naything else, but you know.....i have school. i generally dont think the let you miss three weeks of school for no real reason...even though the really should. depending on when my dad gets his vacation time, he might go in march if it means i get to spend at least a week out there. i want/need go. i need to spend all the time there that i can.....i decided for myself. my dad has to do because there is a LOT of work to be done around the hacienda. it'd a sad but necessary trip. oh, life.

more school 'til christmas. hurrah.

love is how he'd make you laugh.

I can't believe it's true, I'm so scared about the future and I wanna talk to you, Oh I wanna talk to you

2006-10-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

["Talk"/Coldplay]

i'm home right now, and it's lovely.

i go to LA today, and that is sad.

today is the ree month day of papá's death, and that is also sad.

we'll be going to misa today. i havent been to misa for papá since his novenario. it'll be...something.

i never thought that i would love sleeping in my bed so much.

i love being home.....i didnt think it'd be possible for me to love it mroe than i did in october of last year.

there's more to post about.....but i'm so tired....i think i'll do it when i get back to LA.

love is the way i remember him

paloma negra, no lloras

2006-10-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

so i didnt get spain. i didnt get the official "no", but i certainly got the unofficial one......which hurt more.

something better will come.

i guess i'll go cry about it and move on.

love is too good to fret about.

The way it should have been

2006-10-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

per my request my awesome brother fixed the picture!

original:

the better version:

awesome.

love is 5

Clinton is my hero.

2006-10-01T00:21:00.000-07:00

"i wanna buy a smoke ham" um....yes.

and...Clinton rocking the face off of Chris Wallace and Fox News.

clinton lurve.

God gave you style and gave you grace And put a smile upon your face

2006-09-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

[Coldplay/"God Put A Smile Upon Your Face"]

i have nothing to post about, but i'm trying to pass my endless 6 hour shift. i also think it's physically impossible for me to sit down and do hw for an period of period of time exceeding 15 min.

i need to do my laundry today but i'd much rather nap.....i'm not sure which i'm going to do.

since i have nothing to say it's picture tiiime....
some of these are up on myspace and all of these are on facebook (i'm at work so i'm just taking them from facebook)

me and jessica went out on saturday night, the actual process of getting out and to the club was far too stressful and took up most of the night, but, as with everything, we made it into a joke and ended up having a good night.

i turned around quickly and snapped this picture of jessica....how jealous am i that she can wear shorts?

me dancing.
though i do have to say that a lot of people have been commenting on my rosaries recently, which i find a little odd because they hardly did before. i always where two rosaries on my left wrist, except when i dance because if i do then my partner gets tangled in them. i used to only wear one but this summer had to up it. the brown is from a dominican orphanage i spent some time at during summer '05 and the black one is from my grandfather's funeral in the dominican rep this summer. no they are not a fashion statement (people have related them to 80's madonna), no i'm not hardcore religious where i need to have a rosary to protect me from the evils of the world. kthx.

me dancing....again.

jessica breaking it down

me stealing paris hilton's pose and looking better than she ever has.

me and jess.....pretty much the only picture that exists of the two of us.

me and some of my break on 2 dance peeps as rehearsal on sunday.

i think rosie weighs a grand total of 2 lbs....she's our stunt girl.

me and kamilah showing the salsa routine.

i was sitting on the windowsill because it was hot and i was taking break (and i like windowsills and rarely find ones that i can actually sit on) and rosie took this picture and i like it.

so yeah....that was my weekend.

i'm trying to go home one of these weekends and i think i'm bringing Jessica with me.

Gabi is my hero. <3

love is wrapped around my wrist

fantabulous five, woo!

2006-09-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

just because karla posted a lovely fantabulous 5 post...
the fantabulous 5 with some dumb kid with big ears, xmas 1989.
i've posted it before, but it's cute and has more meaning now. =)

joey could you do something to the stupid dumb boy in the red shirt with photoshop?

yes karla.....we need a picture update...xmas '06.

love is in the laughs that bind us

The exaggerated arc of palm leaves splayed across a cerulean sky halted by a series of emerald, lime and olive greens rising and falling into moun

2006-09-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

tains.
[Serrot/Untitled]
that chop off annoyed me, but i'm leaving it because i'm still too tired to find lyrics or a quote....though i guess this is a quote of sorts. whatever.

i've been so tired lately. i had 5 cups of coffee by 11:30am. hmph

all of you=love.
thank you for your support in the run/walk (below), it means so so much to me.

justin timberlake's new cd=love.
i friggin love it. it's glorious and makes me choreograph dances for no reason. lovely.

application process for spring in spain=not-so-much love.
i hate it. it's like applying to college all over again. and then i might not even get to go. mrawr. cant they just let me go?

i'm writing one of the essays right now. i never know how to write these. i especially dont know how to write this one. they phrased the prompt in the worst way......it's like they know i'm a writer and that i like to make these things all descriptive and pretty and they want to make it as hard as possible for me to do that. in such cases i usually just ignore that prompt altogether and write whatever i want, clouding their mind with so much decription and pretty images of the dominican republic that they forget that i was supposed to answer a question in the first place and they accept me anyway. no joke. that's how i got into college. but for some reason, i dont think that will work for these BU people. bah.

it's a month into school and my brain isnt working yet. problematic.

i kind of wish i wasnt taking 18 units this semester....not because it's too hard, but because it doesnt afford me the time to be lazy. i really do enjoy being lazy.

i also havent been paid yet. problematic.

i saw my cousin Mary this weekend. that was fantastic. I love Mary. There's something about her that just makes me feel comfortable, beyond the natural family-ness. a special camaraderie. i admire her, she's done what i hope to one day accomplish on a bigger scale. she's one of, if not the only, older cousin [by "older" i mean in terms of Torres family generations becaue karla IS older than me, but still in my generation, being 6 years older and still the same decade....Mary is 20 years older than me] that i could talk to as an equal. this is mostly strange simply because of the dynamic of my family which would take too long to explain, but you all know that and can read it later.
but anyway....i love mary. i've always admired her, but from afar. i simply admired her because of everything i'd heard about her, how people talk about her, how people trust her, what she's been able to do with her life, and she's really a part of my family (by "people" i mean my family). i've always wanted that so badly for myself. but i'd never actually spent any time with Mary, other than when she used to babysit me when from when i was born through my toddler years. Mary moved to Colorado and I to upstate ny then nyc again. by the time my family moved to colorado she had already moved to boston a few years beforehand. last summer was the first time i'd really gotten to spend time with her and talk to her (and her husband and daughter)....we got to hang out a bit in the DR in '99....but i was still only 12 and that ended up being a terribly sad trip for her and the entire family....so doesnt count. aaannyway. last summer was great. even though it was only a day or two, it made me realize all my admiration was not in vain, she lived up to and surpassed my expectations. after i came to SC we kept on talking for a few weeks then dropped off. I saw her at Alex's wedding in December, which was really nice, but we didnt really keep in touch afterwards. the next time i spoke to mary was on july 19th at around 10pm. I was annoyed because it was so late and someone was calling the apartment, interrupting my grandparents' attempts at sleep. i was so happy it was mary, i was going crazy. early that day i'd gotten into a fight with my aunts about the family's insistence on not telling my grandfather that he was near death and other things related to that issue...i was feeling very defeated. she backed me up, thank goodness. she told me to stay strong and that she and the family needed me there and also that she was coming down late on friday and that she and i would tell my grandparents ourselves the next day if we had to. we all know what happened that next day, so whatever. we helped each other that saturday, i cant describe it here, we kept each other on the same page, it was bigger than my 6 cups of coffee during my 5th hour of work will let me convey. and then there was the dominican republic. the same way we helped each other on saturday we did in santo domingo. so, again....i love mary, but when i saw that i'd just missed her call early on staurday morning i got nervous. because of the life we shared two months earlier and her trips to down to ny to spend time with our grandmother, i thought she was calling me to relay a terible message. instead, she was in california and wanted to see me. that was the best thing she could have said to me other than like...."you've won a free plane ticket to nyc to spend the next 3 months with mamá!" or maybe "you've won $100,000 to pay off your student loans and next two years at school!"....but, whatevs, heh.

i dont think that huge text block makes any sense, but have fun with that.

so i saw mary on saturday. thank goodness. 4 months without family while i'm in a such a high-stress state of mind is far too much to ask of me. i'll post a picture or something when i get off of work.

bottom line...i love my family and think i'm going to need to buy a plane ticket to denver or nyc one of these days, with my imaginary money, of course.

love is swirling between the blue and the green.

I'm too tired for a title.

2006-09-14T02:49:00.000-07:00

he loved to laugh, but more importantly, he loved to see his family smile.
just before we snapped this picture he grabbed my hand

and of course, my favorite...

okay, so, i'm not just doing this to be sad and whatever...

I've registered for 9th Annual L.A. Cancer Challenge benefiting the Hirshberg Foundation For Pancreatic Cancer Research. As you all know papá was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then shortly after (9 days) passed away. i am infinitely grateful for your support throughout all of this.
On October 29th i'll be running for papá. i'm actually very happy to be given such an opportunity.....despite my hatred for running.

If you would to aid in a donation by sponsering me go to the website and click on the "sponser a participant" type out my name and go to my donation page. i dont really know what to expect, so my goal is simply to match the registration fee....obviously, feel free to surpass it....though you really dont have to donate anything. i'll still love you.

beyond that i'm too tired to think.

love is knowing the steps you've taken to get here.

por alto esté el cielo en el mundo, por hondo sea el mar profundo

2006-09-05T01:57:00.000-07:00

[José Emilio Pacheco/ Las Batallas en el Desierto]

hi.

I'm okay. I still miss him terribly. i supposed i'm not necessarily going to stop missing him, but everything i do brings me back to missing him. I missed him so much last night i took one of the rosaries i got during his nueve dias and prayed a rosary at 3:30am. he taught me how to pray the rosary. i refuse to pray a rosary in english, it just doesnt feel right....it feels less, real. not that i'm relligious at all.

i went to go pick up a book i've been in the middle of reading for the entire summer after finishing Shopgirl and out of the book fell my plane ticket to and from the dominican republic followed by my grandfather's recordatorio complete with his picture staring back at me. i cried.

i was really well on wednesday. very much in the school moment. they day before, on my way back from the dorm i walked by this woman that simply fascinated me. i only saw he for the 5 seconds it took to notice and pass by her, but there was something about her that was simply something. so at work i started writing a story about her. i dont knwo what to do with her yet, but i'm an extreme novice with fiction, so it will require kindess from you guys when i post it. but....anyway.....i'd just finished scribbling down her description (it would be something by me without a discriptiion, it's the whole reason i write, to get these descriptions out of my head) when my boss came rushing into the office, closing the door behind him, numbers dialed on the telefone before the door was done slamming. once i heard "May I speak to Jay ___, this is Lee ___", i knew the exact nature of the conversation and put my pen down, put my books away and tears welled in my eyes. My boss's father is dying, any day now. the conversation he had with his uncle was the same thing i heard a month and half ago. it was just so sad to hear, i felt so bad for my boss. after he got off the phone he turned to me and said, "if it were my grandmother, i feel like i would expect it more." life.

on friday i declared a second major. influenced, of course, by my summer and, especially, my grandfather. after mentioning it (the new major) and getting into a fight with my mom i had a some doubts and sat under a palm tree with the paper of declaration of the second major in my hand, signed by all the appropriate people, all i needed to do was turn it in. i called karla and left her a message to call me back, i need to talk it out. i always need to talk it out. i sat there, listening to my ipod, on shuffle, and sifting through the papers the adivsor gave me. then...."Alturo Almonte" came on. i've quote the song a couple of times in the blog titles. it's a tipico song (old campesino merengue), it's my favorite. it's my father's favorite. it was my grandfather's favorite. i walked straight to office and handed in the paper.

so there's my mess of melancholy. you guys are hate me and stop reading my blog if i dont start posting upbeat things.

i'm not sad when you talk to me, i promise.

el amor es un enfermedad en un mundo en que lo único natural es odio

Santo Domingo Blues

2006-09-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

so...how excited was i for Voces?
extremely. like bouncing-off-of-walls, research-everything-about-it excited.

it's supposed to start today, but as ai search for in my local, or even general, listings, i find that is not in existence for the next two weeks of programming....how much do you want to bet it wont be on the programming for the two weeks after that either?

the two documentaries i was most excited about?
Santo Domingo Blues
and
The Republic of Baseball

you could take wild stabs at whyi would specifically want to watch those.
But i really did want to see them all, like the first one, The Bronze Screen.
merh.

more later, when i'm not so unhappy with the united states media, and it's not so damn late. bah.

love is what made the documentaries happen.

Little rooster crowin', there must be something on his mind. Well, I feel just like that rooster

2006-08-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

[Bob Dylan/"Meet Me in the Morning"

just because stephen colbert makes me laugh...

love is love no matter how you look at it

yo soy tu sangre mi viejo, soy tu silencio y tu tiempo

2006-08-22T20:31:00.000-07:00

[Vincente Fernandez/ "Mi Viejo"]

my grandfather died when i was nineteen years old.

that's what i have to present to others in future conversation.

i've seen too much in the past month. i dont know what to tell you.

everything has made me want to cry today. papá died a month ago today. ugh.

i've needed to update you forever.....but, really....what do i say?

i originally started long detail entry, but it's too hard. my writing is to deep for this situation. i'm already doing so much of that for the book, so i'm not going to do it here, sorry. all that stuff you no me for wont be found on my blog concerning my grandfather, que dios lo tenga en gloria, because i just cant.

where do i start? july 17th? july 22nd? july 24th? july 26th? july 27th? july 28th? july 29th? August 5th? August 6th? August 7th? August 9th?

none of them really. this is going to be an odd post. i'm going to post pictures,m because it's the easiest way for me to do this, and i'll explain things as i go along and vice versa somtimes i suppose.

july 17th: i flew into JFK a bit after 6:30am. i took the subway to the apartment where my grandparents stay. I arrive at the apartment a little after 8:00am. My grandfather had yet to get out of bed and my grandmother was in the shower. my aunt pola was bringing him his coffee as i walked in the door. as my aunt walk away from the bedroom i immediately made my way back. i told my grandfather that i was going to visit before he went to the hospital and before we found about the cancer, so i doubted he remember i was going. when my grandfather saw me he threw his hands in the air while weakly shouting "Carola!!" I immediately besó la mano asked how he was doing, noticing his eyes moistening. he said he was "ahí" and asked for how long i would be visiting, i told him for as long as he needed me, to which he responded "thank you"and the tears that were forming fell. i swear, my viejito was trying to kill me. i sat at the foot of his bed and waited for my grandmother.

i spent the rest of the day, and the week, talking to the hospice doctors and social workers and hanging out with my grandparents. i love them, i do. every night we'd pray the rosary and be in bed by 8/9pm, and up again at 6am, though up afew times during the night to help my grandparents whenever they needed. in the morning we'd be up, maing coffee, praying a rosary and all about the same batch of visitors and life again. when everyone asks how my summer went after contandome of all their crazy exploits and european culture hopping, i just think about how gifted i was this sunmmer and how that was probably the best time i've ever had in new york....praying rosaries, getting perscriptions filled, being in bed by 9 and handling the phones. the definition of this summer is simply "family" with up, downs, and all arounds, but thank goodness.

july 22 was a day. i cant even delve into it right now. i've written some very nice things para el llibro concerning this day, but i cant even begin to describe it here. watching him die was unbelieveable. watching him deteriorate so quickly was unbearable. i refused to leave his side. refused. i refused to eat a meal for fear that if i left the room to eat he would die then. i refused to let go of his hand because even though he was sleeping and letting go in every sense of being, he would still squeeze to make sure i was still there. that was more than the culmination of all my days. when he died i knew he was dead, i began shaking uncontrollably. many of my older male cousins and my godmother were calling for me to be removed from the room for fear that i was about to breakdown and cry. i refused. i fought my own family to notbe removed from the room. i immediately began pulling out supplies from the closet to help my aunts and uncles and cousin josie clean him, but the only thing i could think was "i have to call papi". so i left the room. i held down my father's speed dial number and dashed out towards the back of the back of the apartment, on my way passing my grandmother....she didnt know. that was......ugh. i held it together until i passed her, once my father picked up the phone i fell apart....i just fell into a hundred pieces. i didnt know how to tell my father that his father died. i couldnt tell him for the first 30 seconds, but somewhere inbetween my scrambled brain and gasps for air, i threw the words into the universe and he quickly hung up and went on to call his siblings.

after telling my parents i stopped crying altogether and got back to work. i went into the apartment and sat next to my grandmother and held her hand. she still didnt know. my godmother, margarita, came by to tell her, i remained clutching my grandmother's head as she nodded then hung her head...she did not cry. i dont know how she could be so strong, i dont know where she finds it.

i left my grandmother with my cousin Mary and went off to grab the phone to begin calling the services to make the arrangments for the death certificate...someone had to.

there's more to this day, so, so much more...but it's just too much.

july 24: again, too much. i spent 7 hours in the hospital alone with my grandmother...imagine it.

july 26th: i fly to the dominican republic early, missing the ny funeral. goodness......a lot. writing the 22nd just took a lot out of me...so you're not going to be getting much else out of me here.

july 27th: the day from hell. my grandfather's body arrives to the house that night....the worst, most terrifying experience of my life to date. when they were arriving with the body i was just so stripped and so terrified, i....ugh.

july 28: we bury him and i fall into a thousand pieces. when they were sliding him into our mausoleum, my father lost it....so the show was over for me too. the boys all said goodbye first because they were the ones that carried him from the church to the cemetery then the ladies (the daughters) each went up to say goodbye and then i scrambled and pushed through to be next. those were some tears, as nataly said, "i though i was going to lose her!" when i was walking up to the casket to lay my flower and say goodbye....woah.
i wish you could have just seen the people. so many, many, many people. he was so loved.
though, fortunately for you....i have pictures....though they dont convey the feel of it all.....i'm dont talking, i might start uncontrolably crying, and i've got homework to do.

so let me just say, that i love my land. i love it so much it hurts.
this is from my uncle's driveway [this is all on my grandfather's land]. like this is what you just look over and see everywhere where we live. i could live my life out there. seriously.

ugh....love. this is the sunrise haze over the countryside of my life, inoa. see why i love palm trees so damn much? there's just absolutely nothing like those palm tree, so much better than the ones here.

this picture cant even illustrate the amount of people [there were hundreds more at the house] at the church (my cousin took this one....obviously because i'm in it].....the big thing is that there are no cars to bring carry caskets in the dominican republic [woo! third world!], so everyone had to carry the casket through the streets all the way to the cemetery. the 8 boys plus my grandfather's only living brother carried it out of the church [the 8 boys also carried it out of the house, earllier, but i wasnt there because i went ahead to set up the church] and then on the way to the cemetery all the men joined in to help as the throng shuffled behind the casket stopping all traffic. it was amazing.

this is my favorite picture of that that i managed to take because it's the only one that has only members of my family,like direct descendents of my grandfather in the front row. the guys up in the front are all either my uncles or older cousins (we each had a diffeent ribbon indicating what we were).

the boys up front. my father when he lost it with two of his older bothers holding on to him and one of his younger brother in fron of him. [dont ask me how i managed to take pictures of this in between my hysterical sobs.]

the daughters as they filed in to say goodbye to their father.

okay.....so now....breathe.

those were all really sad pictures. now, less sad pictures. [they're sad to me, but they wont be sad to you.]

that down there at the foot of the hill is our river. yes, OUR river. we went down for a swim.

me and my uncle on the ATV, going down to the river.

my uncle insisted upon taking a picture of me even though i refused [yes, even i, could not want pictures to be taken of me] pero, mira que rica esta la agua.

one of my favorite things about the domnican republic is driving around and seeing these blue gates pop up randomly. it's like..."oooo! i own that! that's me!!" or rather my family thanks to my grandfather.

each family there took a picture with my grandmother....i sneaked one of just us two. this is on the side of the house by the verandah also by the garden area (you could kind of see one of the flowers next to me).

it was raining on that side of the mountain and i thought it looked cool *cough*palm trees*cough*.

from the verandah

from the ramada [there's a lot of lounge area with rocking chairs and usually hamocs plus commanding views...it's nice there. heh]

THIS house is amazing. it's 200 years old. my grandfather used to tell me about it all the time. it's where he was born, it belonged to his grandprants. my grandfather never let anything happen to the house and always sent money to help keep it up. it's simply amazing. we want to put a museum about my grandfather and my family in there...my book should fit in well, no?

me and mary went mango picking. mmm....freshly ripened mangos, take me back.

a few cousins in the back of a pick-up truck rolling third world style. heh....we dont need no seats, let alone seat belts! we'll just bounce around with the mangos.

okay now that's all i've got for you from the dominican rep.

this next one is for reese...

me and my buddy/cousin, javi. he's a little scruffy and i gave him a hard time about that, but this is when we spent some time hanging out and the before he drove me to the airport.

okay, so there! that took up quite a bit of time, but i'm sufficiently saddened and i need to get to sleep eventuall for my 8am class that i stilll need to finish the homework for.

forgive me for typos.

love you all and thank you.

love is why i keep coming back

Love of mine some day you will die, But I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark

2006-08-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

[Death Cab for Cutie/ "I will follow you into the dark"]

so, i know that's a sad lyric, but i love that song.

anyway...hi, i'm alive.

my grandmother is well[ish]. she's doing a lot of [effective] fighting, so here's to prayer and a fight. the fact that she's been improving "miraculously" according to her doctors makes me feel a lot better about everything right now.

i've in at USC since wednesday, woo.

i have nothing much to report.

i have two different update-on-the-trip posts started, but i need to sit down with those and i dont have interent in my apartment yet, so i dont have time to sit down with those.

it's been 4 weeks today and it will be a month on tuesday. i've been listening to the recording i have of him telling me stories for my book; it makes me really sad and miss him more, but it's nice to hear being him and doing something he loved [it's stil hard for me to talk about him in the past tense].

but, yeah.....i'm alive and well and mostly bored. i'm bored because i cant hang out with any of my friends from last year because they're either not here ot busy, which is fine, but it just menas i'm bored, because that compounded by lack of car, internet, cable, and book [i accidentaly left my book in jesscia's car and she now in Las Vegas] means i have NOTHING TO DO.

classes start on monday. i'm a bit excited (i know i'm a loser). i just want to get into the swing of things and i want to start working and everything. i'm waiting on a call-back from Galan ent. because when i called the people i needed to speak to were there. i need to set up my schedule. i also need to tell my on campus job that i wont be able to work for them anymore because of my internship. mrawr.

alright, so i'm going go because i'm rambling and am going to proceed with my day of doing absolutely nothing.

love is the way he'd squeeze my hand

Nothing is here to stay, Everything has to begin and end...All we can do is dream that the wind will blow us across the water

2006-08-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews/ "Baby"]

i knew it when i was saying goodbye....that's why it was so hard and i began to cry.

i'm in denver now. i left nyc last night. saying goodbye to my grandmother was the hardest thing i could have had to do. i knew when i saw her, i could hardly bear to look at her face. my grandmother is dying.

today we were given the official word, from a second doctor, only this time it was more detailed and from a specialist.

mamá has 2 or 3 days to live. it's a matter of days we've been told, too soon since we last heard the words.

we havent even opened our suitcases and now we find ourselves needing to prepare for a second trip.

what. the. hell.

ay maria purisima, por que?

i took this picture in our house (her and my grandfather's [que dio lo tenga en gloria]house) the day after we buried her husband of 67 years, i told her she needed smile, because if we look alike, we have to look good while doing it.

and today is my half birthday...just wanted to say it.

oh lord, i'm not ready for this.

love is what makes this all so hard

We find love it's hiding there, In the shadows in the darkness, Maybe it's you and I Could bring it to the light

2006-08-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/"Granny"]

ugh, i'm back in the states. i'm tired.

i dont go home until wednesday, but even then....para que?.....i go to school next week.

i've had to be bigger than i ever expected in the past three weeks. it's a lot of life right now.

a big post is coming...once i get home and sit in my own house and type for a little while.

ugh. i still dont have my money for school squared away, i dont have a car, i dont even have a flight to school. ugh.

i dont know what to say to you all...i'm sitting here...waiting for the rest of my cousins and aunts to get in from Santiago with my grandmother....we need to take her to the hospital.

my family has learned to depend on me this summer, i'm sad because i cant be here for them to depend on...i should have gone to school in nyc.

love is the 146 people he left behind

Ven Con Nosotros a Caminar, Santa Maria Ven

2006-07-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

[The hymn we sang to my grandfather as he died]

at 4:51pm eastern standard time, July 22, 2006 Juan De Jesus passed away. I was standing next to him, he was surrounded by many of his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, and friends.

que dios lo bendiga.

love is holding his hand.

The doctor gave him two weeks to live, I'd give him more if I could

2006-07-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

[Jack Johnson/ "If I Could"]

If you were dying, wouldnt you want to know?

they're not going to tell him, those cowards.

the 18 are being selfish, they all talk as though he should know, but once they see him and actually SEE that he's dying, they chicken out.

cowards.

iunderstands it's your father, but he desrves to know that he as a couple week sleft on the planet. how you could you live with the fact that you're spending this weekend with him, and it could (and most liely will) be the last time you see him and he doesnt even know it. dontyou think he may have something to say to you?

since my opinion or effort doesnt matter i should just leave. i mean i'm here for my grandfather, but since his best interest isnt being honored i cant sit here and be forced to lie to hisd and my grandmother's faces.

i understand it's your father, and it's hard...but shit.....HE DESERVES TO KNOW THAT HE'S DYING.

he has about two weeks left (i ability to pick song lyics is.....eeire) and he actually thinks he's getting better because the medicine he's on make him feel comfortable by the afternoon.

i'm so mad.

love is the only thing that's keeping me here

The world is blowing up, The world is caving in, The world has lost her way again

2006-07-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews/ "Oh"] currently listening to: "I'll be Seeing You" Billie Holiday

bubbles. i love them. it's lovely, being surrounded by bubbles. they just float around you, swirling with the air that you push around them. each bubble it's own world. sometimes the worlds even collide, slamming together in just the right stage of development...forming a larger world. each world you can look straight through, and move, and even end.....unless your hands are slick with soapy water...then they collect and gather into halves onto the hand that kills them.

in my head i think of tumors as vengeful bubbles (i'm very aware of how crazy i am and how little sense my brain really makes). I've thought this since i was young. they are the evil, non-etheral cousin of my worldly short-lived bubbles.

bubbles. i hate them. they are killing my grandfather.

so today [thursday] we were suddenly notified of the terrible reality that cancer has consumed our viejito, less that 3 months we've been told. 92 years down to not even three months...how?

love is so much of what he's built our lives upon.

Lonely two chicken eyes, Open and staring up at me...Why do you run around here...Ask why, then, why, then, ask you silly fuck

2006-07-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/ "Halloween"]
xavier,

fuck you more than i could ever convey. your grandfather is dying, i hope you let him know you're spitting in his face.

love,
caro

I washed all the dishes and I did a lot more, I even bought the dinner at the grocery store, And now, Mom...This little girl's gone rockin'.

2006-07-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

[Bobby Darin\Ruth Brown/"This Little Girl's Gone Rockin']

this is going to be a bit of a pictures post Karla's got the Best of Papi Chulo list up, be sure to stop by, joey's got a link to all the shooting pictures, and nataly's, of course, doing a lovely job of growing her blogger roots. gabi's got an update that's about a week old if you havent caught it yet.

so yeah.....i'm just going to through out some pictures, because....i said so and it wouldnt be a summer with caro without pictures. more blahness has gone down with bitchboy-the-so-called-blood-relation. so to get away from that, i post pictures of everything that isnt him.

as usual, i find myself bored, experimenting with makeup, and taking pictures......vanity is an important spice in life, i promise.

my mother and i recently had a discussion of how my eyes seem to get larger everyday.....it's ridiculous.

i love this color on karla....i dont think i can tell her that enough.

yeah, i make the M4 hot.

and the .9mm

fook yah, .9mm + aviators + rosary= hott.

badassary must run in the genes.

yay! sparklers! she's a-friggin'-dorable.

nataly and ranger, the cutest dog ever at the boy's house (by "the boy" i dont mean bitchboy, i mean the boy that i mentioned a couple of posts ago that i think reese might kill me for not mentioning--i didnt want to jinxx it, but once i mentioned it, things began to look better, so who knows).

me loving ranger, again, at the boy's house...that's gabi in the background, not the boy.

salon + rain + red hoodie= the little red riding hood look.

yeah, she's still a-friggin'-dorable.

primas!

to the fantabulous five! even though one is missing from the toast.

wooo!

[to the tune of "happy and you know it"] If you're crazy and you know it, wave one hand in the air!

love is the five point star

We've Danced in the Risk of Each Other, Would You Like to Dance Around the World with Me?

2006-07-09T01:57:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/ "I'll Back You Up"/also on one of my stephens senior bricks]

it's late and i'm actually tired so for right now i'm just going to say that i have gotten yet another lovely friend/relative of mine to join this blogger world....wicked awesome [my current favorite phrase].

naaaaatalyyyyyyyy is here, yay!!!!! read her blog.

more to come...yah.

love is in the changes that move us

spending time with the family

2006-07-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

love is my dad's wicked aim

At long last it's crashed, this colossal mass Has broken up into bits in my moat... This is way beyond my remote concern of being condescending

2006-07-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

[The Shins/"Caring is Creepy"]

the past week or so has been weird. i just dont know what to do with it.

saturday was just fuckin' weird. after going to bed at 6:12am i woke up at 9am to go to the salon even though i didnt have an appointment. i went to the salon to accompany nataly and karla, who both had appointments. karla to cut, more accurately trim, the [beautiful] beast that grew out of her head; nataly to touch up her highlights and make her blonde warmer rather than bleachy. one moment we're talking about how cute the little broderick baby is, the next karla has lost enough hair off of her head to adorn the neck of chilly fashionable upper bourgeois bitch, nataly's bouncing about with a rainbow of blonde flailing behind her, and i find myself sitting in the salon chair getting a dark auburn dye painted onto my hair....????? none of us know what to make of the 5 (or was it six?) hours of salon we endured...but we walked out looking like this...[no makeup, be kind, heh]...
who knows? we ended up loving karla's haircut after some major grieving and anger when the salonist took "cut off ends" as "cut off 6 inches" eep. nataly's hair atcually came out beautifully, no complaints on that front. my hair....came out looking black, darker even than my natural color, mrawr. though, it takes lovely shades in the light, i'm already planning to lighten it up...this time in auburn shades rather than brown/blondes....just because i decided i can. it's kind of cool to see my hair dark again though, i like what it does to my eyes.
after the salon we did something, i can't really remember, but then we went to karla's house and put on fun makeup because we were excited about our hair. after getting all gussied up we went over to my aunt's house and enjoyed some lovely conversation and picaderas [appetizers]...it was truely lovely. until later on when i was notified of my complete selfish-offensive-hefer-ness....thanks.
i mean i dont mind being called on my shit, but i was already in a mood to begin with seeing as though mine and nataly's boys were being dufuses (yes, i had a boy and didnt tell you, but it's nothing to shoot me over, trust me) and other things. i dont like being kicked while i'm already down. this was then all compounded, later on, by a particular asshole with the talent of making me feel cheap.....thanks. i began hating being a redhead even though my hair look black. i ended up just getting mad at the world i'd put msyelf in and remedied it with mariokart.....which helped. i'm tired of offending people with my opinions, half of what i say is simply said to get a reaction of people; usually being laughter at my saying things about random people or my own looks. i understand this makes me seem egotistical and downright mean, but if you actually know me, you know that that's not very true. but god forbid i get worked up over something that actually bothers me and i offend you, fuck that, you should know better. [i'm just generally mad and tired of people being offended by me or calling me selfish or anything of that nature, because it's happened again from someone who should actually know better and that's why it hurts...so i'm not really mad at the person, i'm mad at what he/she was mad about (it makes sense in my head)...and...OH MY GOD...i'm worked up about, so i'm getting all "crazy" again, god forbbid...people on this planet SHOWING EMOTIONS and SPEAKING THEIR MINDS....no....not in this world....that's offensive]. but, whatever. i'm, slightly, over it...that was saturday.

sunday it poured. we went to starbucks and filled out "thank you" cards. and just generally sat around, laughed, and killed time until "Devil Wears Prada" started. we went, we watched, we went out to dinner. well, rather, we waited for my brother to get ready and THEN went out to dinner. we decided on Red Lobster because one of us had a gift card. the meal seemed rather benign to me, except for when we lost gabi to the bathroom....but otherwise it was the five of us making fun of each other or bitch boy and a lovely, fun dinner.....though this was because i wasnt sitting where nataly was.
had i been sitting where nataly, or karla, were seated i would have noticed a thugged out african-american fellow flipping nataly off and then switching seats with his lady friend so that he would no longer be sitting on the outside of the booth next to our table AND the proceeding event would have made sense.
as we solved the case of the missing gabi because he was sitting back down to finish his meal, i began hearing a raspy voice in an indecipherable dialect calling for a girl which sounded like "becky". i kept talking to the table, teasing gabi for taking so long, but the "becky"s were persistent and soon enough nataly began responding to them. the voice was croaking out of my thugged out black fellow seated next to his lady, accross from both his about 4 year-old daughter and seemingly mother or mother-in-law. he began squawking at nataly even more, in an accusatory manor: "would you like to pay my check..o' maybe you could pay half because you were sittin' at mah table..." and a lot of other things that i simply didnt understand and didnt care enough to try to. nataly just repeated, "no, no thank you" a few times and kept on turning to our table to continue talking to us, though mr. hoodrich kept going, in a mocking tone, trying to imitate this "becky" character, "yeh, i hate dem niggers.....he' [refering to himself] so ignorant"...[direct quotes....way to accurately describe yourself with the ignorance vote, fellow...]...i still didnt really understand what was going on, other than the black man was apparently mad at nataly for NO apparent reason. as my buddy and his family got up from his table he went up to nataly's face and told her, "i hope my cousin is the one that robs you, then you'd be good," with his baby-mama cackling behind him holding hands with their daughter and they made their way towards the door. the rest of our table was stunned because we had NO idea what just happened.....nataly explained that apparently, while staring off into space during dinner her eyes fell upon the family next to us a few times and mr. thug had flipped her off, but she didnt do anything (which we know because she didnt even mention being flipped off during dinner and had she done something, we would have noticed).
apparently mr. thug thought he was mean-mugging a table of colorado whities being less than welcoming to a black family eating at the red lobster. he got so mad he had to switch seats and sit on the inside of the booth and then tell the table of whities off, threatening them with robbery.
there's a problem with this idea.....the table of whities was actually a table of dominican children of immigrants born and raised in new york city. hmmmmmmm. it made for some lovely joking because it was simply that friggin ridiculous....my brother said it best, "i cant believe i just caught racism, from a black guy." now, my brother and i could NEVER be mistaken as white....like....EVER....so this was fascinating...see the picture of us?....not white.... i mean, we got a BUNCH of great laughs and jokes out of the incident, but it just goes to show that you NEVER know who you're talking to.

today was mainly uneventful....it rained. i took a lovely drive with karla, we talked and listened to lovely music. life.

love is so much of what other people say

Spend this time with me, Together share this smile

2006-07-01T01:45:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/"Lover Lay Down"]

hi.

i went to the museum with my brother yesterday, the denver science museum to be exact. they had an exhibit that i've been wanting to see for over a year (Body Worlds 2). it was all very lovely. i love museums, though i love them more when they arent so packed. most of the museum was fine, but the exhibit was terribly packed and would be really nice if it were empty....next time, i'm going to the afterhour exhibit. but i still loved it. it was wonderfully cool.

first we went to the "space odyssey" section of the museum. my brother was excited, which was expected considering his childhood interest in space. my brother has always been really smart, much smarter than me. when he was was really young he was all about the dinosaurs. when we were moving from our house in brooklyn in '02, i was looking through old boxes (which is something i do all the time anyway, i'm obsessed with the past) and found our old reportcards. in my brother's 1st grad reportcard the teacher was describing that he was a great student but needed to work on his penmenship (a problem for both of us). she then went on to describe his surprisingly extensive knowledge of dinosaurs. it rubbed off because in preschool i was pointing out triceratops and sabertooth tigers to the other student, but i never had a large inquisitive impulse towards them....i liked things like the human body, hence my excitment for Body Worlds.

anyways...we went to the Space Odyssey, there were a bunch of hands-on activity stations with children darting between each with parents hovering behind them...though in our case it was my brother darting between the activities and me hovering behind. my brother spent about 5 min docking a model spaceship, then we went on to the infrared cameras. we sat down for a while messing with the different objects (one of which being a blow dryer), during this time a random older volunteer decided to come and point out that it was an infrared camera....this confused me, because we clearly werent 10 and 8 years old, but whatever, smiles and nods are lovely weapons for such social warfare. we played with the objects in the station until we both decided that, though lights and blow dryers and tiles are all nice and fine to look at under infrared lights, people are so much cooler. so we sat down in front of the big infrared camera/screen with with glasses on and were plain cool...and took pictures because we were that damn cool.

after the infrared station to wandered around a bit until we ran into Henry Olsen's station. My theory is that Henry Olsen was a science teacher that started his career in the early sixties, but is now retired. He must have been retired for a few years, but soon realized that he still loved teaching, he heard of the opportunity at the museum and applied to be a volunteer. He was cool. His station was a table with a projector directly above it projecting the solar system off of the laptop controlled by good ol' Henry. I would normally refer to him as "Mr. Olsen", but he clearly broke the ice when he couldnt remember the two elements the sun uses in its selfconsuming combustion and muttered "Fuck!", he's clearly, a cool old guy. as we walked away from Henry we decided that Joseph will pretty much be that type of old man.

after the Space Odyssey we bounced around a bunch of animal exhibits trying to pick out all the animals in the displays, it was le good times. after all of this it was time for the exhibit we bought tickets for.....woo!

the bodies were crazy awesome. i loved it. mainly it's a bunch of dead people that are cut open, plastinized, posed, and put on display....i loved it. a couple of them were really crazy because theskin was still on, so you could still make out the faces....usually an older, balding, slightly overweight man. i want to see Body Worlds and Body Worlds 3. my brother ended up buying a skull (obviously not real) for his bookshelves, i approve.

we left the museum after the main exhibit, saving the rest of the museum for another visit, and drove around to go find something to eat ending up at City Grille. We ordered brugers to see what all the hoopla was about. While waiting for the burgers and jamming out to some lovely being played i notices a record exchange across the street and asked my brother if we could pop in there after the meal. the burgers were very good, one of the better i've had, not the best, but certainly good. following the burgers we went to the record exchange where i bought two Beatles vinyls. lovely.

we drove around a while longer and came back to our parents house soon to have nataly meet up with us and later go on to dinner with karla a gabi. me and joey didnt eat because the burgers did a good job at filling us, definitely a good meal. we bascially just hung out for a while longer, this summer has been good for bringing the five of us even closer.

today was nice too. i spent some more time with my brother then karla and gabi came over with our baby cousin nani. we chased the baby bunny i found the other day and want to keep, but he got away......i will catch him, he's so cute and tiny, i named him Fufu.

we went to go see Cars with a few other cousins including nataly. it was really good, better than expected considering i didnt even want to see it.

afterward the usual five of us went to our usual village in and had a thoroughly lovely time laughing loudly.

during the afternoon i bought my plane tickets to santo domingo....yeah, i'm going. i'm continuing my traveling saga of a summer.

i'm going to nyc again in two weeks. i'll spend a week there and then i leave to my motherland (DR) for 3 weeks and then i go back to nyc for a few hours then back to denver and straight to LA about 2 days after that.

so that brings my summer travels to....
LA-->Denver-->NYC-->Miami-->NYC-->Denver-->NYC-->the Dominican Republic-->NYC-->Denver-->LA.

if you want to get together while i'm in nyc get in contact with me.

my mom is having problems with all of this because it makes her realize i'm never staying home again. even though i left 5 years ago, she now really realizes that i'll never spend more than vacations at home.

i'm excited to go to Santo Domingo, but i cant really believe it. before this week i really wanted to go, but knew i wasnt going to be able to.....i dont have money for that. but, alas, life changes in a matter of days. no, i didnt suddenly run into extra money, that'd be nice, but i didnt.....life just works in odd ways.

last year's trip was necessary to get me where i am today and i dont even know where this trip will launch me, that makes me smile.

okay, so that's two days in my life and general feel for my summer so far.

her genes are stong, i see her in you

2006-06-30T03:29:00.000-07:00

[the visiting nurse talking about my resemblance to my grandmother during her visit/may '06]

okay....so....pictures.....HERE!

making kipes (kee-pehs) [one of my favorite dominican foods, ever] the weekend before the guests arrived...look at my deep concentration.

the gathering on the thursday before the party (yeah we rock, parties for four days straight!!!)

the normal version of the picture in the post below...my two lovelies, nataly and karla

i love this picture. this is one of my primitas

me and my dear nataly on friday at the little crybaby bitch's house

lovely. though, my face is weird, it makes me laugh. =)

can you say glorious? because i sure can. yay for nonstop airport trips the whole weekend....this was a 2am pickup.....karla has more from this insanity.

awww, she's still cute.

joey's hott.

paaaaarrtyyyy tiiiiiimme!!!! me and nataly at the paarrtyy. (ps. let's all just collectively love my beehive).

me and chrissy (who flew out for the party and i miss deeply!) we're hott.

so, i dont look so hot.....but it's the only group picture i have of us all gussied up.

loooovely ladies...hah for nataly holding the girls in.

=)

me and my brotherrr

17 of the 18

half of the grandchildren

less than half of the great-granchildren (they're taking over the world)

we're hot...still.

i'm a bitter 1950's housewife...woo!

okay....enough pictures.....i'm tried...

i have more pictures from just other summer days and, you know, an actual post with words and all....sorry i havent been delivering lately.

love is the skull

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-26T02:37:00.000-07:00

[Al Gore's movie on global warming....so good...take everyone you know to see it, especially young people that know nothing]

Two die in Denver warehouse shooting

Rampage At Safeway Warehouse Ends Wth 2 Dead, 5 Injured
(AP version)
(Denver news version)

we're all mortal. we're all connected.

my dad works there. thankfully he had gotten off work a few hours earlier. thank god, thank god, thank god......thank god.

mrawr, life.

i'm tired......more on things that make me go "mrawr" later. including lots of fun pictures and videos! =D firat i'm off to the boonies of colorado for book research....weeeeeee

more to come...

love is the element

There is no line that you can't step right over

2006-06-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

[Gomez/ "how we operate"]

blogger hates me, so pictures will take longer than anticipated, but you can see them on my facebook or myspace...depending on what world you're in.

i've been weird lately. i partly blame x.

my brain is tearing itself apart and i blame my family.

unfortunetly for me, i love my family. i miss my grandparents, i need to go back, but i'll miss here. i wish i could be in three places at once, sometimes i convince myself that it's possible.

i love my cousins and brother.

i'm very tired, which is obvious by the complete lack of sense being made at the moment......and, i suppose...the time.

i wish my music worked, i think that would help...a lot.

i'm reading sense and sensibility again. i'll finish the other books later...i'm actually missing a book i was reading...THAT makes me sad.

this is just a post to show i'm alive and well (i really am well).

love makes hurt cut deeper

One sweet world And in her breath I'm swimming

2006-06-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/ "One Sweet World"]

this weekend was like a dream, but i'm simply exhausted.

after a crazy begining of the week last Sunday, i didnt know what to expect from the week, but it was everything i needed it to be. there was so much family here, it was mind boggling. i wish it could last forever...and it just may, because many of the families that came to visit now want to move out here, i love it. the more family that comes out here, the better.....the more likely i will be to want to come back and have my own family here.

i'm so exhausted, i cant even think, i've been saying nothing that makes sense and i just cant process information.

my aunt's party was simply beautiful, emotional in ever facet of the word. oh my goodness. she was so happy, everyone was beautiful and acted beautifully...eveyrone was happy and it was amazing. i wrote the speech raquel, my aunt's daughter, wanted to say to her mother. it was my first time writing a speech like that, and then having to translate it into spanish....which is was interesting. i realize that i can write half way in spanish as i do in english. i can see what i want to say and synthesize the images, but i cant go that extra step and craft the beautiful flow of words as i do in english, as well. but after a while, i was able to get a better swing of it. the speech said what raquel needed it to and tia loved it; that made me so happy, that it offered a connection between raquel and tia in the moment of the party....that was so nice. oh man, and the godchildren killed me (karla's included in that), they read the most beautiful poem to tia in english and spanish, just paying such a beautiful tribute to her that she deserved during such a lovely birthday celebration. chrissy isnt even related to us and she got emotional during the begining ceremonies, hehe....it was just so nice. it just went together so well, i'm so happy. so so so so so so so so so so so happy.

i'm too tired for life right now, so i'll post picture tomorrow.

love is so much of everything this weekend stood for

Oh, but this weighs on me, As heavy as stone and as blue as I go

2006-06-05T03:48:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/ "The Stone"]

Duvet
Lyrics by Jasmine Rodgers
Music by boa

And you don't seem to understand
A shame you seemed an honest man
And all the fears you hold so dear
Will turn to whisper in your ear
And you know what they say might hurt you
And you know that it means so much
And you don't even feel a thing

I am falling, I am fading,
I have lost it all

And you don't seem the lying kind
A shame that I can read your mind
And all the things that I read there
Candle-lit smile that we both share
And you know I don't mean to hurt you
But you know that it means so much
And you don't even feel a thing

I am falling, I am fading, I am drowning,
Help me to breathe
I am hurting, I have lost it all
I am losing
Help me to breathe

love is so much more than this

To change the world, start with one step; However small, the first step is hardest of all

2006-06-03T04:23:00.000-07:00

[Dave Matthews Band/"You Might Die Trying"]

i feel so much right now, i could just cry. It's not really sad at all, I'm actually very happy.
i just got two tattoos that i've been planning to get for years. i just celebrated karla's birthday.
i just listened to my brother tell stories and be happy.
i just came to terms with my hate for my little cousin when someone hurt her and i had to step up and make her laugh and be the family i was raised within. i'm in such a good mood right now, i believe i could even write.

i hate being confined by my age. i feel it more now than ever before

i wish los angeles werent so far from the east coast. and i wish i could get myself to understand that it is that far away.

i wish people would grow up and get over themselves.

i wish i could get a job.

but, this entry has taken a down turn, and i dont like that, because i'm generally happy.

i'm so friggin excited about the party. 17 of the 18 will be together. we havent had that many of them together for over 6 years. we need this.

there are going to be so many people, it's going to be lovely. SO MUCH FUN. i'm trying to make as many people go to this thing as possible, people need to experience these people (my family) and people to experience me with my family....and by people, i mean YOU people. except you crazy people that i dont know, you're not allowed.

as much as this past week and a half has been far too drama filled for my taste, it has also been amazing. i love this. i love so much of my life right now. i love so many of the people in my life right now, they are so much better than the people i dislike. hehe i miss my apocalypse friends a lot, we need to do another weekend gathering.....perhaps fall?

sidenote***oh shit dave (matthews) just broke out "stop, baby, what's the sound, everybody look what's going down" at the end of "jimi thing"......why have i never heard this before?***

me, karla, and nataly got the matching butterflies we had been planning on getting for a couple years. yay for cousin bonding!
i got a dave matthews band firedancer i'd been planning to get since i was 14. i'm HAPPY.

since i cant conherently recall my life in the past couple weeks......here are pictures, because this wouldnt be my blog without pictures....

...this is what happens when i get a new camera

karla's going to kill me, but i love herr. out to dinner the night before i left for nyc after just getting back from LA

i copied her because i love her. =)

a few hours before i left for nyc...my brother took me out for indian food.

ileana's the hula hoop queen.

we're cute in candyland

ileana's a prety pretty princess

ileana's a princess and as we all know.....rather....as chrissy knows...i'm a QUEEN.

EXCUSE me, but i'm busy WALTZING.....i AM a queen.

yankee games are fun! oh...and....the two girls in this picture will no longer be able to afford a sophmore year of colege because we bought grossly overpriced stadium hotdogs.

priiiiimas.

educating my cousins in indian food. wooooo

my brother calls them my crazy globe eyes. [me and denise]

i love nataly's eyes next to mine. i love that we're cousins. i love that when were little we were attatched at the hip.

las ladies y.....jc

you've seen us a few times.

yes, we're that damn dominican....we youngin's playing domino in xavi's garage.....with the Presdiente table and domino set....word.

takin' karla out for her birthday

nataly y karlita

psst...karla...we're taking a piiicture.

thaaat's better.

GAHD....LOOK at my beautiful cousins! their eyes KILL me. those are natural my friends....those ladies are are just genetically gifted in overall goregousness from the ridiculous torres gene pool.....and i've got crazy brown globe eyes....sweet (i mean, i love 'em, but really?) ! hehe...you're going to have to click on the picture to witness the true color of these eyes, you cant fully tell with the picture this small.

people should just not point cameras at me....i'm shaking my head at myself.

you alright over there karla? ; ) muah!

happy birthday to karrrla!!

so i reached my dropshots limit....let me know if this doesnt work and i'll delete some dropshots stuff if it doesnt. pretty much...we're very loud dominicans.

love is within the butterfly and the firedancer

HAPPY BIRTHDAAAYY KARRRRLAAAAAA!!!!!!

2006-06-02T00:45:00.000-07:00

[Me, as i sprinkled water in her face at midnight while sitting in her house talking]

Happy 2_th birthday (it's an important birthday...she's 2x3 years older than me) to my lovely cousin and best friend Karlaaa!!!!! yay!!!! I looooovvee youuuuuu!!

today will be a lovely day, we will have FUN! and if those bastards bring the drama, we'll bring the heat....y ya....se acaba con eso.

love is somewhere in the wings of the butterflies

We Forget We Live In The Real World

2006-05-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

[Raquel Ortiz/ May 20, 2006 Chica lit Club Fiesta, Miami Beach, FL]

kicking off the weekend in Miami Beach, we (me, erasmo, and angie) made a toast on ocean avenue. woo! Erasmo and Angie are the other two winners for the Chica lit conference. We had to sleep in the same room because more people came to the conference as anticipated, that's okay....luckily we all share a slightly twisted sense of humor and we had a good time. We even came up withaname for ourselves...."tres company". Though we were worried we'd come off assnobs on the first night because there was a welcome bbq by the pool at 6 and we didnt show up until 7 and then we sat a table by ourselves, but only because all the other ladies already seemed so chummy and just stared at us when we walked in. later on two lovely volunteers at the event came to sit with us, Kritstie and Katrina, they are aMAZing beat poets and I'm so glad we got to hear them do their reading on sunday. They are from the miami area and just graduated college. they offered to give us a ride to ocean ave, where all the parties on south beach are, and we accepted and left the bbq early. hehe, yeah, we're snobs. so that picture was after walkingaround we sat down at a cafe/bar outside on the sidewalk, ordered some drinks (there was no such thing as "carding" that weekend, i felt....cool), and talked and watched the South beach partiers go by. We did some more walking and shopping and all that South Beach jazz, then got a taxi back to the Resort.
there was a prom being held in the Resort that night, by thetime we got back is was over, but there was a prom sign in the lobby. We took a prom picture, Erasmo was my date.....then we stole the sign, but Angie convinved us to leave the sign in the elevator and not take it into our room.
alisa valdes-rodriguez welcoming us in the oceanview room on saturday morning.
the next day began with the welcome breakfast, then on to panels! there were a ton of really great panels, during which connections were formed between all who attended as the panelists told their stories.....and i dunno....it's hard to explain the bonds made, it was cool, and expecially evident by the end of sunday.
the beach was riiight there, this was taken from the pool.

on saturday i met with an agent who was nice, but kind of annoyed me, so i would never sign with her. she told me i should incorperate some chica lit styles into my writing because it's more marketable......umm....no. my family is not chica lit, my writing is not and will never be chica lit. go away, there will be others, thanks. I went to more panels met a lot of amazing people, i dont really remember which panels happened on which day anymore, it's all a blur, but a lovely blur. That night we went to Bongo's (one of Gloria Estefan's restaurants) and ate yummy cuban food and danced some salsa in the danceclub part.....it was goodtimes...it was chica lit gone wild!!! haha, not really, but it was still a lot of fun. Sunday came and that meant our readings! Angie went first and was as Angie as she could be, she made everyone laugh with her awesome storytelling, it was great, she's just amazing and i'm so glad this whole thing will get her writing, she needs to, everyone deserves to be able to read it. I went after her, i was nervous as hell, i dont think i did all that well, but everyone liked it and i got an amazing response from people, so.......hurrah! erasmo went after me, oh man.....he's amazing......really.....a-m-a-z-i-n-g, he deserves everything from this weekend......his book is going to be amazing (it's finished!) and he's an amazing reader. angie and erasmo are amazing people with amazing futures, i'm so glad i got to meet them, along with the other amazingn people at the conference. Sunday was such a great day, i just felt so much more comfortable with everyone there and i'm sad it had to end. after the readings an editor from St, Martins Press gave me her information, she's really nice and went to USC and i like her. =) that night we had our dinner last dinner which was soooooooo good and the atmosphere couldnt have been better. i loved it. Alisa did a reading from "Make Him Look Good" and from the book she's working on writing now, "Girl Crush"........she read the first chapter, which is amazing, in opinion her best yet, it's more personal, more literary.......it's beautiful. while she was reading she stopped and said "and this is my homage to you, caro" when reading about a detail of the main character that corresponds directly with my life. that was insane. why would someone see the need to do that for me? i'm a kid! but Alisa really believes in me. not even in the "i believe you can and will" way but in the "it's not only going to happen for you, it's happening for you" way. that's crazy. i dont understand the life i've managed to build for myself at 19, but i will do everything in my power to make sure it doesnt go away and will only get better.

I also, somehow, managed to get an internship with Nely Galan........now THAT is ridiculous. nely just made a deal with NBC to make telenovelas in english, she's friggin unbelievable and amazing (everyone there was just, AMAZING). after i spoke to her about the possibility of interning for her, she late ron turned to Alisa and pointed at me and said, "She's going to intern for me" and Alisa's response was, "she should, she's brilliant!".......um.....okay.....i'll take that.

if you want to read about the conference, read this article written about Cindy Rodriguez, an unstoppable, unbelievable accalimed journalist who was at the conference.

on monday my uncle came to pick me up and take me to he and my aunt's house outside of ft. lauderdale then to the airport.......i took erasmo with me because he had a flight at about the same time as mine, that was very cool, i'm glad i was able to take him, espceially after doing my reading.

so my lovelies, i have a book to write. for real. that's crazy. the interest is there, i know people, people know me......now i need to finish the book. i even know what i'm going to write another book on.....i'm really excited for it, it's going to be very cool....but first, my family, i have so much to do, but it's going to be amazing (it's seriously the only word that comes to mind to be able to describe the overwhelming feeling i have right now), i promise.

so i'll leave you with a few pictures....

after my reading i lunched with reese and put my feet in the ocean.

yep, i said reese, ladies and gents.

angie, me, erasmo, katrina, and kristie (the amazing poets) after the last dinner

tres company.

love is so much of everyone

Everyone Knows I'm In Over My Head

2006-05-24T13:47:00.000-07:00

[The fray]

after my 5th plane in a week and a half i'm home. and very, very, very, very tired.

but miami and grandparents were goooood stuffff.

more later.

for now.....my dad just made me woek on the garden, i've been up since 2:30 denver time (4:30 nyc time).....so, i'm tired and i think i'm going to take a shower.

i cant upload pictures without my firefox crashing,so i need to figure out how to get pics up here.

love is in the genes.

2006-05-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

2006-05-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

2006-05-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

2006-05-15T05:48:00.000-07:00

She's got the truth and her tongue for a slingshot

2006-05-08T02:41:00.000-07:00

[Marcy Playground/"Coming up from behind"]
so....i'm obsessed with this song and i've been wanting to make a dance to it for the longest time.

my pick-up time for my boxes is from 12:30-4:30 and i havent finished packing and i work until 12....i didnt stay up packing becaust at 4am i decided i was too drunk to pack and needed to sleep.

egh.

things i did yesterday:
go to bed at 7:30am because i was packing.....didnt finish.
eat brinch with kamilah
take a nap under the sun in the quad
bought my history book
watch dane cook comedy
take a nap
do some research
watch the end of an SVU episode with Chrissy
watch grey's anatomy with chrissy
go to chrissy boyfriend's house, got drunk and played halo (jow would be proud)
had my bio TA, who is Chrissy's boyfriend's ex-roommate, make me a screwdriver. [okay, so he's notspecifically my TA, but he's a TA for my class an di've had him for a substitute and i still find that whole situation very funny.]
danced merengue
giggle a lot
leaps with chrissy down ed's hallway
pack a maleta of clothing
fall while trying to rumba

i really dont want to take two finals tomorrow, but i ge tto go home....which is good. it really doesnt feel like the end of the school year, it's weird.

love is stem cells

they dont love you like i love you

2006-05-07T01:42:00.000-07:00

[Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs/"Maps"]

things i want to do:
sleep.
write.
dance.
see my grandparents.
read.
sleep.
listen to music.
dance.
write.
fall asleep outside under the sun.
hang out with my dance peeps.
hang out with my cousins.
hang out with my apocalypse friends.
hang out with my brother.
hang out with my granparents.
drive around in fast cars listening to good music, not talking and looking out the window.
brush my teeth with eileen.
make up a silly dance to a random song.
go to a dave matthews concert.
tell my grandmother i love her and am proud of her and make her believe it.
write.
go to the DR.
speak spanish and be surrounded by people speaking spanish.
go to a family party.
have one of my apocalypse friends at my family party in June.
see a scary movie.
meet Zoë Saldana.
go to one of my dad's softball games.
start my sophmore year.

things i have to do:
pack.
take two finals on tuesday.
pack.
not get a C in anthro.
survive.
hug someone (no, i'm serious, i realize, people out here dont hug....and it kills me).
pack.
remember to eat.
study.
pack.
get on a plane on tuesday night.
stop promising people things.
buy a planner.
buy the history book i havent read but the final will be on.
a lot of things i choose not to remember.
pack.

love is passing the prefect torch on and the fact mario award went to another stephenite.

Sick and uninspired by the diamonds in your fire

2006-05-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

[Foo Fighters/"Tired of You"]

i've been closely following this girl, because it has a lot to do with me ahora. Little, Brown & Co dropped her completely, hurrah!
though, i'm pretty sure they wont be in the market for any young writers any time soon. it has not been announced if they will make her give back the $500,000 they gace her for the deal for her first two books now dropped.

Keith Richards and Kaavya Viswanathan Will File Lawsuits
By Chip Hilton
May 3, 2006, 08:29
...
Ms. Viswanathan, 19, will sue Megan McCafferty, author of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, over the numerous and distinct similarities between those books and Ms. Viswanathan's first novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.

According to an editor at Little, Brown and Company who did not wish to be identified, "Kaavya was devastated when she was informed of the blatant similarities between her work and Ms. McCafferty's. Kaavya felt especially betrayed because Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, despite the coarseness of their titles, were among her favorite books in high school, and she read them several times."

At first Ms. Viswanathan was at a loss to explain how so much of Ms. McCafferty's writing had found its way into How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, but after being tormented for several says by the Death Cab for Cutie song "Different Names for the Same Thing," which Ms. Viswanathan could not get out of her head, she realized she was the victim of a written earwig.

Although earwigs are, technically speaking, songs that lodge themselves in our brains and resist all efforts to evict them, Ms. Viswanathan will argue that Ms. McCafferty's written words were earwigs because they were "consciously and deliberately fashioned to burrow into the subconscious of their readers."

Ms. Viswanathan may also name Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries, and Sophie Kinsella, author of Can You Keep a Secret?, as codefendants in her suit because passages from those books have also appeared in Opal Mehta.
_____

if there is any truth to this......omg...Kaavya, give it up. i'm so tired of you. before this whoel thing came out kaavya claimed she had no inspiration for her books, and now she's plagued by earwigs. shut up.

"In her first statement on the situation, McCafferty said, 'I wish to inform all of the parties involved that I am not seeking restitution in any form. […] I look forward to getting back to work and moving on, and hope Ms. Viswanathan can, too.'

Ha, right. We don’t really see Viswanathan moving on to much of anything after this, other than the inevitable memoir of how she fell into such a deep shithole at such a young age (our advice to KV: just blame drugs and depression, it makes for a better read). As for Kaavya’s pricey education, we know what Harvard should do, but will it actually happen? "

gawker, i love you.

oh, and kaavya.....i'm not believing this "photogenic memory" schtick.

love is earwigs