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.

I considered liking and old old friend

3. Paul

So, I met Paul ages ago. He's English and has come to the US a few times.

The last time he came, two years ago, we had a great time. We kept going out, getting drunk, mostly. That whole time, I had this feeling that he wanted us to get together. It's just that feeling girls get. He seem to take every opportunity to just be a bit closer to me. Though one time we got super drunk and he put me to bed, didn't try a thing. A bit odd but still sweet in my book. I mean I appreciate it when I guy I like takes the opportunity of being drunk to put the moves on me (if I'm sober enough and all).

We did not hook up. I just didn't feel that big of a connection with him. I also was very hesitant to even consider starting a cross atlantic relationship - which is of course what would've happened since I seem to always jump on relationships instead of just thinking we'd have a casual hookup and call it a day.

He left and I felt sad. I drove him to the airport and he gave me a big hug and a kiss on the lips. My lips were dry I remember, and I didn't like it. It's always nicer when someone kisses you and you have kissable soft lips.

Alright, so fast forward 2 years later. I decide I wanted to go visit him in England. First problem, when we were talking he said maybe I'd have to spend about 4 days of my trip on my own because he was going to have to work. I got upset. I was upset because I felt he should've dropped everything for me. Yes, that's the reason. I was also upset because I hate traveling on my own, I'm a big chicken shit. I'll go around the world, but I don't want to do it all on my own. I'd like someone there, or with me, or some kind of program. But just some backup. Yeap, chicken shit here. Anyway, I was like fuck it, and changed my trip to leave a couple of days before he was suppose to start his job, in order to be "considerate."

Everything's great, though I was very nervous. I was nervous because I asked myself whether I should hook up with him. From his last visit, it seemed he was more than willing and it was all going to be up to me. I just wasn't sure, yet the idea of starting something with some European guy, with his English accent, sophisticated ways, globetrotting life, and all that was quite appealing, quite appealing. It catered to my silly girl fantasies, so I wasn't going to pursue that but if it happened then I'd totally go with it.

I get to England and everything's cool. Except: he turns out to be super organized. I had a list of places I wanted to go and he was just very very committed to us hitting all those places. He insisted on waking up super early, and I insisted on complaining about it. The funny thing is that I could never sleep so I'd either wake up just when he did, or even earlier. It's hard for me to sleep on other people's beds. We slept in hotels a bunch of times, and he booked 2 rooms. It turns out that in England a "double" is just a big bed, while I thought it was two beds in one room. But that's apparently a twin room or something like that. So, I was kind of taken aback at the first hotel when we were given separate keys and thought, "no wonder the hotels are so expensive!" I asked Paul about it and he said he assumed that's what I wanted because he sent me the hotel reservations and I said nothing. I hadn't read the email. Worse, because I hadn't said anything about the double rooms, then we had already booked all our hotels as double rooms. We tried to change it but that became a huge deal and we ended up having to sleep in separate rooms the whole time. This turned out not to be such a bad thing.

As the trip went on, I got more and more frustrated because Paul was very distant, extremely polite to the point of seeming cold, and sometimes robotic and unable to just relax. This created issues between us because the more robotic he was, the more I acted like a child, felt like a child, and saw him like some really old guy (I think at some point I told him he was like my mother because he seemed so paranoid about me leaving my laptop on the backseat of his car!) I felt he thought I was mature so I'd make conversation to boast about all the mature things I did. He'd talk about his X's and I'd start talking about mine. I just really reverted. To the point that now I'm thinking I really am completely immature, and just pretend to be mature to be able to get along in this very ugly adult world.

One incident was weird - we were in Bath with his friend and had gotten very drunk. We were trying to make our way to the hotel and I'm not sure if I was talking, but out of nowhere he asked me "why do Americans say 'like' so much?" I got very upset. In general I took some of his ways as him thinking he was better because he was English. But I'm not sure, I just got mad and stopped talking to him. I then stumped towards the hotel, and at some point he was asking me to talk to him, and I tried to explain stuff, then we went inside without me talking to him and I just walked to my room. I went into the room then he knocked on the door, and that made me happy. He said he was there because he felt we shouldn't go to bed mad. I think that made me more mad. We then talked and he sat on my bed, and I think I wanted him to make some mood, but he didn't and left. I passed out. The details of this whole thing are vague due to me being completely trashed. The next day I met him with a smile and told him we should just not talk about the night before. I'm not sure how much he remembered.

Alright, one night we made our way back to his flat, after much drinking. We were talking about the next day, and I think I complained about getting up too early, or going to too many places. I don't remember exactly what it was that Paul said, but it was to the effect of me pissing on his country or not appreciating it. I know I almost cried, or started to cry, and got upset because I told him that was not true and very unfair. He apologized, but it fed my idea about him thinking quite highly of being English and looking down at us "Americans." At that, he'd made some comments that lead me to think that he's very nationalistic and anti immigrants to England. I'm beyond not nationalistic, but flat out believe in open borders to all countries. I'm of course an immigrant so that may explain my thinking a bit.

Anyway, so my trip was just that, complicated and weird. Sometimes I liked Paul a lot, sometimes I didn't like him, sometimes I thought he was so cute, sometimes I thought he was ugly.

I got back to the US and all that confusion, on top of missing England just mixed in. I, being myself, didn't hold it in but told him. He said he was flattered. We haven't really emailed much since. I figured I'd leave it alone, and try to forget. Though I secretly want Paul to turn around and realize how much he likes me, at which point I'll decide whether or not to give him a chance. Yes, irrational thinking, I know.

See other posts on Paul and I.