I saw my sisters

I've always said I wish I had a sister. I guess that's because I have no biological sisters. Well, not exactly. See my dad had a daughter with another woman, way after he and my mom got divorced. Either way I don't really know her.

I've always leaned on my cousins and my girlfriends for that kind of stuff you're suppose to get from sisters. To be honest, I can't really name the stuff, but I know what it is. I see it in my friends and cousins with sisters.

Well, this last week I found out my cousin had a very aggressive form of cancer. She is 27. She is an Iraq war Vet. She is sooo strong. I love her. I've always known this, but I guess this past 10 days I have felt it almost every second of the day.

She was always a tiny little thing. She is 5 years younger than me and we were best friends when we were little. Sadly, when I became a teenager, hanging out with my 8 year old cousin was the last thing from my mind.

I still remember her like she was back then: long neck, super thin body, wearing cute ruffled dresses (tho I suppose we were all victims of that kind of fashion), chlorine stained front teeth (when she had teeth), and really happy. I guess she isn't that dissimilar now, except now she's full of life's scars. We all have them. I have them and I see them in her. Her scars weren't made the same way as mine but I recognize them. I empathize with the hurt and anger, and it hurts to see them on her. To not be able to heal them. To know that it's way too late to prevent them. Yet like all scars, they have toughen her up, perhaps to a fault.

When we were little, we'd sit on her livingroom couch and watch Carebears and ET (like Aaaaallll the time). We'd play dress up and smear our faces with makeup, bright red lipstick of course. We had such great and innocent times!

I now wonder when exactly I decided she wasn't cool/fun enough for my morose teenage butt. I know we moved so that made hanging out harder. My memory has her, then it switches to school and my angst filled butt hiding and hating my mother for quite a long time (prob 14-17).

Now she's grown and for some time now I have wished we could go back to being inseparable. But it's hard, life has happened. I left her alone when she needed me. I wasn't the only one but I was one of them. Now she thinks she doesn't need me or us.

I wish she knew that though she may not need us, we need her. We need her here, healthy, happy, smiling, clubbing. Oh yeah, she's one if those posting every time she went to the club. And that made me smile. I was always so happy to see she was having fun and enjoying her youth, lord knows I enjoyed my 20s.

So yeah, only now do I realize that though I looked for sisters all over the place, I have always had them here. I have a lot of sisters really. I just hope I can show them and I hope I can be a better sister than I have been so far.

I am hardly the most religious person, but right now I pray. I pray all the time. I pray for my sister. I thank God for each day she is here. I thank God for the chance to help her fight. I pray for the fight to last as long as possible. I pray for her to win.

I stopped for a moment and thought.

It's kind of funny. And I certainly never thought I'd be writing this, but I think "Mother Knows Best" finally.. hit me?

Alright, when I was a kid I constantly lived to do the opposite of what my mother want it. She wanted me to wear make up, so I refused. She wanted me to always get my hair done, so I didn't (tho I did wash it). She wanted me to not go out with my hair wet, so I always did. Tuck in my shirt, so I didn't. Get boyfriends, didn't. Learn to cook, didn't. Go to college in NYC, didn't. Stay at home, didn't. The list is really quite long, if not unending.

I basically was of the believe that mother's whole existence was to either annoy me or some how make my life complicated. She could never truly have my best interest in mind, "I KNEW BEST," not her.

Well.. so I'm older now (not that much older!!! ok, maybe a little, oh man, I remember my mom being this age!! but anyway…), and I guess I'm becoming a bit wiser. The older I get, the more I listen to my mother.

I realized today that when it comes to making decisions, like what job to take, and stuff that I'm totally at a lost about, just can't decide, well I seem to turn to my mom. She generally gives me safe advice. She tells me to think of the future. To not be impulsive. To realize that things can be worse later and so I should prepare for that. This is all very safe and sound advice, the kind I would never give myself. Now, the older I get, the more I want to hear that kind of advice. I guess I'm just not as carefree and risky as I use to be. Maybe I'm just getting old? Naaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. I'm just growing up.

I was reminiscing about my grunge days

So, I was listening to music today. See, I decided to make up a 90's Alternative playlist. The playlist, of course, contains: Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Gin Blossons, Pearl Jam, Blind Melon, Weezer, and many many more.

Around the 9th grade or so, back a million years ago, I decided I was in love with all those bands. MTV was a fixed channel that elicited full fledge fights with my older brother any time he dared change the channel. My mother was wise enough to get us a TV and leave us to fight with each other in our room. We shared a big room (yes! we were poor folks from the NYC, what do you expect?) The room was great, and my brother, (thank god!) was rarely around. He spent most of his time skateboarding or just flat out getting into trouble. But MTV was always around.

I loved coming home and just turning it as loud as possible then singing till I couldn't speak. I mean, how can you not scream as loud as you can to 4 NonBlonde's What's Up? Just the lyrics are amazing. To this day I feel like screaming to this song, and still some how connect with it. I guess it's the whole part:
I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means


Tell me that's not fucking true?!! Or even more, so many times I feel like this:
And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's goin' on?


But something happened today while I was listening to these awesome songs. Well, I realized that the songs were never about me. What I mean is that I always felt like the songs reached into my soul and poured out my feelings. I suppose in a way they did, but my secret thoughts that the songs were written for me (because of my own narcissistic ideas. Yes, I'm still reading "A Culture of Narcissism) Then I listened to Live's "Lighting Crashes," and there's the part where he says "pale blue colored eyes," that kind of smacked me int he face and I realized fully that man, they totally never thought about writing songs to a poor Dominican girl in the New York City. I mean, I'm not saying Van Morrison was thinking of me when he wrote Brown Eyed Girl.

I just started thinking of all those videos I watched of all those bands that I love and not even one person in them resembled me at all. Like Smashing Pumpkin's 1979 video. My God! I remember watching this video and thinking my life was shit!! hahahah I mean, it was, to me, like teenage Utopia. There, no parents, a bunch of "cool kids" jumping into pools and having that ideal suburban life I had only imagined, or seen on TV. It all sounds really silly but it's so true. Of course, now I realize that those were just a bunch of models.

All this really leaves me nowhere. I mean, I love that music and always will. I do feel they spoke of the overall sentiments that all teenagers feel, particularly to us "Grunge Gen'" kids. Maybe that's one good thing about today's music, there's way more people that look like a poor Dominican girl from the New York City on tv, not many but more.

I woke up crying

I sometimes find my dreams both a curse and a blessing. I've had many wonderful wonderful dreams. The kind that make you wake up with a smile, and a bit of sadness for having left the dream. I've also had many sad, ugly, and upsetting dreams. This was one of them:

Abuelo (grandfather) died when the clock said 5:51

I went into hospital where my cousin was working as an assistant but Abuela (grandmother, dead almost a year now), who was there kept calling him doctor. Franklin joked that she thought he was a doctor. Abuela was attached to a UV cord that was really long. As I walked, Abuelo came towards me and fell on me.  He was crying and in a lot of pain. We dropped to the ground, I couldn't hold him up. Then Abuela turned to me and said the doctor wasn't giving him enough drugs.  As she said it, the counter attached to Abuelo's UV cord stopped at 551. Abuela's was still going pass 700.  I yelled crying and wailing for the doctor who was standing watching us to call someone.

That was the end of the dream. This dream, by the way, started with me flirting and almost hooking up with Rich.

I woke up crying, sobbing really. I called my mother, she said what I had been repeating to myself for a while "it's just a dream." I now try to talk myself into calming down, before I use to just let the emotions roll whichever way they wanted to go.

My grandfather is still alive. He's currently trying to get laid. He was always a dog, always cheating on my grandmother, always bad to her. After she died he was so upset, I thought he would die. A few months later his former mistress was hanging around him and I think my aunt said she saw him sporting some viagra. Yeap, that's gross.

But I find that guys do that, a lot. I lived with a guy, two months after we broke up he was trekking through Europe with some other chick, and they ended up getting together for years. Another boyfriend started to date someone a few months after we broke up. A year later I told him I was seeing someone and he flipped. Apparently I was suppose to become a virgin again.

Men are such weird things. When I was younger I really wanted to be a man. Being a woman, particularly in a Hispanic family is extremely hard. I was never allowed to go out with friends, stay out late, do normal stuff. Nope, I had to be at home. When I was about 13 my brother told my mom he would no longer wash dishes. We had been alternating dish washing days before. He said, "I'm a man, and man don't wash dishes." She said to me, "Go wash the dishes." I remember the fury inside me. They're lucky my fury could not materialized because I'm sure it would've turned into a giant dog and just bitten their heads off. Well, I held out for a few days, but after a serious beating I begun to wash dishes every night till I left for college.

I now love being a woman. I'm not sure why. Maybe is because men have hurt me so much, and I don't understand how you do that - on purpose! I also know that women are much stronger than men, and I see men's weakness and find it repulsive. Women are beautiful, smart, strong, and caring. Why is that a flaw? It's not.

my mom brought up the age old question

"So you're not going to have kids huh?"

I thought she had give up on the idea, but I guess she hasn't. It's really funny.

The interesting thing is that this time I answered her honestly, without being defensive, sarcastic, or annoyed. I told her I don't think so. I explained to her the following things: I like my life. I don't want my life to change. I don't want to spend money on a kid. I want to use my money on myself. I want to travel freely. I want to hang out with my friends freely. I want to do whatever I want. I'm selfish, and I know it. I also know that children are a choice, so why would I choose something I know would change my life in a way I don't want it to change. I have a dog, and the nurturing I give to her is enough, at least for now.

I don't know if I'd choose to have children even if I got married. I have no innate desire to pass on my genes. At that, if I get married, I'd like to enjoy my life with my husband. I'm very big on the idea that you should get married to someone whom you love emotionally and physically. I'd like to have sex many many times - a day. That's how much I'd like to desire the person I'm with. If things cool down and it drops to just a few times a week then that would suck, but it's still better than what I hear from my married friends. I mean, kids kill sex lives. You can't do it anywhere but hidden away in the bedroom, and quietly. How boring! I'd get married to be happy with this new person, not to bring another life into this dog-eat-dog world. It's not even that, I mean I don't think the world is a horrible place and we shouldn't bring kids into this world. Not even close. On the contrary, I think smart people should have more and more kids (but they're usually smart enough not to have many), since usually the dumb and uneducated people are the ones that have lots of kids. I'd hate for that movie Idiocracy to come true.

Still, everyone I know who has kids. Well, I'm not sure having kids has been that great for them.

For example, most guys I know with kids then have the issue of: having the kid with someone they're not married to and don't like. Having a kid with someone to whom they're married to but now would love to leave but will never leave because of the kid. Either way, it seems like such a trap.

On the other hand, the women I know are all devoted mothers, to the extent I sometimes think it's not that healthy. What I mean is that their lives are consumed by their children. They can't see how their lives are basically simply that - their children's lives. I'm dreading the day when these kids grow up and these women are stuck at home alone. The sudden realization that your life just walked out the door to college, or whatever, and has no interest in even calling you.

I just don't like it. I see it, from the outside, and I just can't buy it.

Take a look at this New York Mag article on how miserable most parents are. I glanced at the cover of the magazine about 2 hours before mom brought up the "baby" topic. Funny huh?

I was tired, like a wookie

I thought, while riding the train, "man I'm tired, like a wookie." Nope, I've no idea just how tired wookies get, but I can imagine is something like this.

I'd be less tired if I had enough time to sleep. Unfortunately I'm currently a temporary, hourly employee. This means I have to get as many hours as I can in order to pay my disgustingly huge student debt.

Thank God there's no debters' prison!!  You know, that's where your creditors use to send you when you couldn't pay your bills.

I'm almost certain at this point that I'm going to die a debter.  At first, this realization made me quite upset. I mean, the shame!  But after some time my mind has shifted to a more relaxed outlook. I mostly laugh at the thought of being in my death bed and raising a big ol' middle finger to our educational system for forcing people like me to go into extreme debt in order to get a mediocre education, so I can spend over 40 years working to try to achieve the so called American dream that the media sells us.

Though I have to say that I'm more and more confused about the "American Dream." I suppose that's because my life's quite far from any kind of dream, much less some idealized "American Dream." I mean, what exactly is the American Dream now days?  And how do you get it?

I use to think you got it through education and hard work. However, education has left me with a debt so big I can't expect to pay it for like 30 years. And though I work hard and long hours, I don't seem to kiss enough ass to get ahead in my temporary job, which I got after the economy went bust and spewed me and millions of others out of our permanent good jobs.

I'm thinking the American Dream now's just a dream some people made up before they invented the Internet to keep us entertained. Are you entertained? I am, sometimes.

I decided to search for some passion in my life

Sometimes I ask myself why I'm such a bum.

I don't play sports.
I don't watch sports on tv.
I don't play an instrument.
I don't draw.
I don't cook.
I don't really exercise.
I have no passions.

I've never been able to understand why I've no real interest in being interested in any one particular thing.

I have so many friends that are crazy about: a particular sports, play some instrument, want to sing, want to go out hiking, blah blah.

I tried riding bikes, all because of a guy of course, and that never went anywhere. He got me a bike, for free, yay! But I rode it one time, because he came over, and that was it. I've moved a few times and keep carrying the damn bike with me but just can't seem to get my butt on it. I've told myself to do it several times, but then I couldn't pump air into the wheels. The thing must be busted! Either way, I'm scared to ride it. I don't think I can ride a bike anyway.

I tried playing volleyball in junior HS, then I graduated and that ended. Not to mention I wasn't crazy about it because my boobs are too big and all the jumping and running hurts me. Yes, even with 2 sports bras on. Some of us just aren't lucky enough to have little buds attached to our chests. Yes, I do consider that lucky. It'd certainly help me look less big in my suits.

So, I'm still looking for a passion. I think that'd help me. A passion, that isn't my dog. People think that's weird. So, something that gets me out of the house and socializes me, like I should do for my dog. A passion that gets me talking to people, maybe guys? I guess that makes me feel like I'm desperately looking for situations to meet guys. But isn't that what most 30 something single women are suppose to do? Yeah, that's a hell of another topic, and super loaded.

The funny thing is that I - love - people that are super into stuff. I guess I just envy them. They seem to intense about whatever they're into.

I'm still searching for some passion, something I like for no other reason than it makes me happy. I keep signing up for stuff, and never do anything, there's always an excuse. I just think a passion for something would bring just a bit of happiness into my life. I'm not sure how, but I guess that's the idea in my head.