La Mariposa Vuela

Twelve Arrested in OWS New York March

2012-01-30T16:54:00.000-05:00

I'm still on the fence about the OWS movement. That Nate Kleinman from Philadelphia will run for Congress gives me some hope. But I'm adamant about supporting the protesters' right to do what they are doing without being bothered by police.

Twelve Arrested in OWS New York March

Three New York city cultural institutions closing soon

2012-01-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

I used to buy my vinyl at Bleecker Bob's, and Holiday and Southpaw were on my to-do list. It seems I waited too long.

Usually, when you hear of neighborhood's changing or of new buildings going up, it's welcome news. In New York City, it isn't anymore. If a Starbuck's or other chain of significance comes to a neighborhood, it is met with a groan.

Three New York city cultural institutions closing soon

Apple continues to ignore hazardous conditions in factories

2012-01-26T16:45:00.000-05:00

Do you know who made your iPad? Do you even think about that?

Apple continues to ignore hazardous conditions in factories

Trying something different this year

2012-01-25T16:35:00.000-05:00

On this, the 2nd anniversary of daddy's death, 2 years and 2 days since I last saw him, and 2 years 25 days since I last spoke to him, I am trying something different.

Last year on this day, I took off from work. I wasn't sure whether I would be a wreck or not. I was. I went to mass, then promptly returned to my darkened bedroom with a bottle of scotch. I did cry a little. And I drank almost the whole bottle of scotch. I kind of made sure I would be a wreck. They say you can call things to you. I realized soon after that day that it's true. If you plan out a day to be miserable, God's gonna make sure you're miserable.

This year, I am at work. In fact, I am "working" as I write this. I'm going to a waxing appointment after work and then home to dinner with a loved one. I have stopped calling him. Yeah, business as usual. Daddy would've wanted me to "quit dawdling" and stop whining and get with the program, so here you go, dad.

I bet he is having a steak dinner with a bloody Mary while watching a tango show. I would love to join him.

I haven't eaten a good piece of red meat in months.

"Why in the hell would you do that to yourself???"

I don't know, daddy. I don't know.

Connecticut Mayor Seeks to Help Latinos by Eating Tacos?

2012-01-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

This really happened. In 2012. In the United States.

>>smacks forehead<<

Connecticut Mayor Seeks to Help Latinos by Eating Tacos?

Philadelphia's Nate Kleinman First OWS Congressional Candidate

2012-01-24T15:34:00.000-05:00

Could Nate be OWS's congressional mole? Whatever happens, I am very glad to see that someone in the movement is stepping up to foment real change from the inside.

Philadelphia's Nate Kleinman First OWS Congressional Candidate

Otto Perez Molina: Guatemala inaugurates a new president

2012-01-15T19:47:00.000-05:00

Guatemala deserves a fair chance at a better country, safe and secure for its citizens. Let's hope for the best.

Otto Perez Molina: Guatemala inaugurates a new president

Bloomberg nixes idea to limit alcohol sales

2012-01-11T22:35:00.000-05:00

Thank God! This man must be stopped. The public's health, or lack thereof, is not for the government to regulate just because parents stopped doing their jobs with their kids.

Bloomberg nixes idea to limit alcohol sales

Drug trade: Costa Rica is now being tested

2011-12-29T18:48:00.000-05:00

Trouble in paradise. I wonder what this will mean for those surfing classes and yoga retreats I was thinking of taking.....

Drug trade: Costa Rica is now being tested

Changing World Order: Hope for Democracy and a Decent Future

2011-12-28T14:28:00.000-05:00

A little 2011 in review.

Changing World Order: Hope for Democracy and a Decent Future

Endangered reptiles smuggler caught by stunned Argentina airport workers

2011-12-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

Ridiculousness!!!! At least over-vigilant airport security finally proves useful.

Endangered reptiles smuggler caught by stunned Argentina airport workers

Facilitating Rendition: Defense Spending Bill Passes Congress

2011-12-21T14:48:00.000-05:00

Read my article and then join me in trying to figure out what on earth Obama is doing here.

Facilitating Rendition: Defense Spending Bill Passes Congress

UN Issues its First Report on LGBT Human Rights

2011-12-16T13:44:00.000-05:00

Slowly but surely, things will happen.

UN Issues its First Report on LGBT Human Rights

Occupy DC: Police seek to stay out of it

2011-11-27T19:59:00.000-05:00

News from DC. "Occupy" is nationwide. Let's remember to read about what's going on in other cities too!

Occupy DC: Police seek to stay out of it

Violence against women: Latin Americans demand action to counter crimes

2011-11-26T22:51:00.000-05:00

Latin American women protest for their human rights. By Maria Morgan, aka Mariposa

Violence against women: Latin Americans demand action to counter crimes

A Review of 'Another Happy Day': Another Chance to Wallow

2011-11-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

Barry Levinson's son (and Ellen Barkin's rumored boytoy) makes his directorial debut.

A Review of 'Another Happy Day': Another Chance to Wallow

A review of 'The Lie': Can life be rewritten?

2011-11-20T18:55:00.000-05:00

Great movie that examines fears of growing up without selling out.

A review of 'The Lie': Can life be rewritten?

The Innocence of Youth: A Review of Tomboy

2011-11-17T14:56:00.000-05:00

Sweet French film about youth and innocence, playing at the Film Forum on W. Houston St., New York City

The Innocence of Youth: A Review of Tomboy

A Review of Melancholia, von Trier's Vision of Apocalypse

2011-11-15T14:18:00.000-05:00

Lars von Trier's ego directs new film, Melancholia.

A Review of Melancholia, von Trier's Vision of Apocalypse

'The Descendants' Review: A Quiet Life Awakened

2011-11-15T00:10:00.000-05:00

Premieres on Wednesday, 16 November. RUN, do not walk, to the theaters!!!!

'The Descendants' Review: A Quiet Life Awakened

'Long Live' The Decemberists!

2011-11-02T23:00:00.001-04:00

'Long Live' The Decemberists! A review of their new album, Long Live the King. Listen at AOL music http://music.aol.com/new-releases-full-cds/spinner#/1, then read the review. Or vice-versa.

Palestine Membership Approved by UN Agency

2011-10-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

Palestine Membership Approved by UN Agency

Big Banks Decide to Scrap Monthly Fee Plans

2011-10-28T16:01:00.000-04:00

Big Banks Decide to Scrap Monthly Fee Plans

College Education Even Less Affordable

2011-10-28T10:24:00.000-04:00

College Education Even Less Affordable

Azerbaijan Wins Security Council Seat

2011-10-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

Azerbaijan Wins Security Council Seat

UN Security Council Elects New Members for 2012-2013

2011-10-21T17:15:00.000-04:00

UN Security Council Elects New Members for 2012-2013

Guatemalan Dancers and Float Win Hispanic Day Parade

2011-10-20T15:59:00.001-04:00

Guatemalan Dancers and Float Win Hispanic Day Parade

Serial Groper on the Loose Again in Queens

2011-10-20T15:59:00.000-04:00

Serial Groper on the Loose Again in Queens

Palestine Continues to Push for UN Membership

2011-10-20T15:58:00.000-04:00

Palestine Continues to Push for UN Membership

Post-Sept. 11 -

2011-09-12T14:38:00.000-04:00

Post-Sept. 11 -

Ban Ki-Moon Warns Skeptics of Climate Change

2011-09-12T14:27:00.002-04:00

Read my article!!!

Ban Ki-Moon Warns Skeptics of Climate Change

Chapultepec Park, Mexico City

2011-07-13T15:07:00.001-04:00

This morning, I quickly grabbed a dress out of the closet to wear to work on this 95 degree day. I put it on, slathered sunblock on my face, dusted on eyeshadow and bolted out the door.

Only halfway through my commute did I realize....this is the dress I wore to my father's funeral. Black and summery, with black roses stitched into the bodice.

Towards the end of my lunchtime yoga class, we lie in Savasana, our heads supported by yoga blankets, our knees resting on bolsters. Today, Jessica put eye pillows on our eyes. Classical music began to play, and I knew I had heard this before. I just didn't remember where. Could it have been a Sunday at daddy's when I was a kid? The picture popped into my head - me, walking out of the bedroom to find daddy, sitting in his burgundy leather easy chair, back to me, his bald head and strong shoulders sticking out over the top of the chair, sipping coffee from a teacup he had gotten with my mother in London.

I began to cry very quietly. Not that this was alarming. I always cry at the end of yoga, or any fitness class, for various reasons.

I thought of a book I'm reading, Say Her Name, by Francisco Goldman. I first got interested in him because he wrote a book about Guatemala and its civil war and the murders and corruption that took place during it. It was fiction, but rooted in history. I discovered that he too came from a Guatemalan mother and an American father. And now I am reading a book about the woman he married and lost only three years into their relationship.

That's when I remembered the name: Chapultepec Park.

I thought of the letters daddy used to write to my mom while on his business trips. There was definitely love in those letters. My parents really did love each other once. My mother will never admit it. Port-au-Prince, Guatemala City, Santiago, La Paz, etc. One letter in particular was written in Chapultepec Park to my mother while she was pregnant, and daddy described to her the little train that the kids could ride around the park, the trees to climb, how happy it all made him, and how he pictured his baby, me, there. I can see him sitting on a bench, writing this letter, the grin on his face.

And I realized that he is there, sitting on a bench, waiting for me.

One eensy-weensy-teeny little thing results in a burnt forehead

2011-04-18T16:53:00.004-04:00

After, oh, about 9 or so years, my Ex, who always did have a way of finding me when I had already put him out of my mind, friended me on Facebook. It took me about two weeks to decide if I'd accept this particular friend, more so because I've come to know my weaknesses. I figured since he now lives 1000 or so miles away, I could accept safely. But my burnt forehead may prove otherwise.

That was about 2 years ago, and now we've spoken on the phone a couple of times, for two hours or so each time. We have always had a lot to talk about. We talk over each other. Being friends was never the problem. We excel at it. But, ever since then, I've been having dreams in which Ex is the star. Only a couple, but they were quite vivid, the most vivid I have had in a long time.

1. Battle of the Scandinavian-design furniture.

In this dream, Ex and I are living together in the apartment I currently own. The place is decorated in much the same way it is in real life, with most of my dad's old furniture and art on the walls. The piece of furniture in question is this wall unit that currently lives in my mother and stepfather's apartment in Virginia, which I have coveted since I was a little girl. It is sleek and simple, mahogany wood, clean lines, quintessential Scandinavian design. A testament to my stepfather's impeccable taste in furniture. Anyway, I had fought long and hard to wrestle that wall unit away from them, and I used it to proudly display my stereo (record-player included, thank you very much), my pride and joy record collection (The Who to Ravi Shankar to Fleetwood Mac to Gladys Knight to Louis Armstrong), various tchotchkes and family pictures, and my beautiful orchid plant.

Ex and I used to live with this dude, AH, and he starred in the dream as co-conspirator. He did not live with us in the dream, but thanks to Ex and him being friends well beyond our living together and subsequent falling-out (my and AH's), he often sat on my beautiful, beige, very expensive couch smoking cigarettes in his cocky, self-centered way.

In pre-bedbug NYC, one could often find nice furniture and accessories on the curbs. So one day, Ex and AH find this ugly-yet-utilitarian desk/bookcase hybrid monster from IKEA near our apartment and bring it inside. They can't figure out where to put it, so they get rid of my precious wall-unit and Ex plops his computer on this new monster and sets to work writing a song. Brilliant, to be sure, but I come home and freak out, and like a television sitcom, the dream closes with a close-up shot of me, my mouth hanging open in anger and disgust. And the worst part, the IKEA monster had a big gash in its side. Ex made me feel like the bad guy for wanting my wall-unit back, that I was too wrapped up in possessions.

Conclusion: God saved both of our lives by breaking us apart, for if we had stayed together, we would have eaten each other's souls.

Why? Fundamental differences in the way we live. He doesn't care about things being pretty. He cares more about whether they are useful to him or not. I, on the other hand, care very much about things being pretty. If I made a list of how my days are spent, you would see that a lot of my time is spent either in the shower washing my hair and body with all manner of flowery/sugary/fruity shampoos and gels or in the mirror, blow-drying and straightening my hair into graceful submission, every bang laying just so, or in front of the mirror applying and re-applying makeup. True, some days, I don't care how I look, but most days, I "girl out", as another boyfriend put it. This need for things to be pretty reaches out its tentacles to most aspects of my life. I carry pretty purses. I love pretty furniture. I like it when it's really useful, but prettiness trumps all.

I very much resented Ex's friendships with people I couldn't stand. First there was AH, which I've already covered. Then there was Anna, this Polish emo/manic depressive chick who used to live with us. AH and I couldn't really stand her much if at all, and it didn't help that her and Ex would take long walks together and that one day, I came home to find her little mary jane shoes placed ever so neatly on the floor beside my bed. I don't remember having asked questions about that, but I remember fuming for days. And then there was that little hipster girl who lived in SoHo who I loathed, but to whose apartment I was often dragged in the name of pot delivery. All Ex's other friends, I quite liked.

So yeah, extremely different lives to say the least.

2. My credit card, myself.

Last night's dream involved me living in a strange house in a suburb of some city, snow covering the ground. Ex was visiting or something to that effect. I remember waking up in the morning to find my credit card stolen and him sleeping with another woman in this, my house.

The credit card represented me, and not because he stole me. I lost myself completely in that whole mess. The other woman may or may not have represented another woman, but if anything, it represented the fact that I ended up not trusting him much and if something was amiss, it was almost always his fault.

Which brings me to the burnt forehead. Since I have been speaking to Ex, I have 4 new burns. The first two are on my wrists from when I was making grilled cheese sandwiches and not paying attention to my arms. The other two are on my forehead and neck, respectively, and came from mishaps with the straight-iron. Now, I have been straight-ironing my hair since December 2003. One would think I know what I'm doing. Thankfully, the burn on my forehead can be concealed by my bangs, and the one on my neck is way in the back under my hair. But the ones on my wrists make it look like I have been trying to kill myself.

This could be me going through an accident-prone time. It happens. This could also be me having things on my mind, things that I had put away a long time ago, and therefore just not paying attention. I'm not sure. But my hairdresser thinks it's the latter. As much as I emphasize knowing thyself, often other folks know me better than I know myself. So he may be right after all. Queer guys are usually quite insightful.

(Now we'll see if Ex really does read my blog.)

"Why you're not married" - I call bullshit

2011-04-11T16:47:00.004-04:00

TV writer Tracy McMillan is a master.

Surely she wrote "Why You're Not Married" to get a rise out of people, and she certainly has, me included. The backlash is all over the web. I will also bet that her article was her way of cleansing herself by admitting she has three failed marriages under her belt. My guess, however, is that she would rather project her own failures onto her readers than take responsibility for the fact that she has very bad judgement. It's easier that way. Following are her points and my reactions:

1. You're a bitch - I'm not gonna lie. I am, sometimes. So is everyone. Bitch is a very subjective term, because if I don't give you what you want, you think I'm a bitch, right? Well, vice-versa. Yeah, I do get angry. NYC is a really good place to foster anger. As long as you're not shooting up post offices and have some positive outlet for your anger, like a spinning class, and you own up to that anger, you're good.

Over this past summer, a friend told me that another friend of ours (how very high school - sheesh) said I was a negative person. You all know where I was emotionally at that time, if you read my blog. I also very much cared about what people thought of me. So much so, that I went out of my way not to be all sad and emo in front of my friends, when really I was and had every right to be. Friend told me a couple of other things and soon it all came to a head and I freaked out on her. I said something along the lines of "I feel like I've just had my right arm cut off, so if anyone deserves to be upset, it's me!!" She was speechless for a minute, very uncommon for her, and that behavior was very uncommon for me. Needless to say, but I'm saying it anyway, it isn't anymore. Lessons learned: 1. Your friends are your friends, until proven otherwise. So if you are feeling like shit, they should understand. I'm all for decorum, but there's no reason to hide your true feelings in front of your peoples. If they whine because you're no longer Miss Suzy Sunshine, cut em off. 2. Stop caring what people think of you. It's not important, because their opinions come and go. Your opinion of yourself will follow you everywhere. 3. You don't have to keep quiet.

McMillan says "...you think you're super smart, or....setting boundaries," as if those were bad things. There's nothing wrong with either. I am super smart, and I am setting boundaries. And my life is better for it.

It's true that female anger terrifies some men. And it is our problem, but getting rid of that anger has nothing to do with catching a man. Fix yourself and the rest will fall into place. Let us please get rid of this notion that we need to change how we naturally are just to snag and/or keep a man.

2. You're shallow McMillan's got a point here. She doesn't mean "shallow" in that you like to shop or have an LV suitcase you refer to as "Louis". She is talking about a list that women are often encouraged to make of the traits they want in their ideal man. Now, I love to make lists, and I made one of these about 7 or 8 years ago. I stuck it in a bible I have at home and prayed and hoped for the best. Not. Working. Ladies, take that list out of your bibles, journals, safe-keeping boxes hidden in the back of your closet, rip it up and burn that shit. You shouldn't be eyeballing every man you meet to see if he meets height, weight and eye color requirements. Talk to him. If he asks you out, go, and if it turns out badly, at least you know what NOT to want. I always wanted a basketball player with a pretty smile who looked just a little mean (translation: good in bed), and a great ass that had to be bigger than mine cause when we did it I didn't wanna be embarrassed, and he had to be super masculine. So what happened? I ended up dating a tall, skinny chef, and yes, his butt was smaller than mine yet he never complained, and our relationship was one of the best I've ever had. Which brings me to my next point: when you are freaking out over what you look like to your man nekkid, stop. Know this: he already won the lottery. He gets to do it to you. Now proceed.

3. You're a slut Oh Lord, here we go with the whole "men can have sex whenever they want, but women don't get to" shit. I just never though it would be a woman dishing it. The excuse here is a chemical: Oxytocin. McMillan says that past a certain age, it's the Oxytocin that gets women attached to men, even if they're just casually fucking. So it's not mens' faults. It's a chemical. Huh? This is what I know: If you start a casual relationship with someone, then he leads you on and treats you like his girl, gets you all excited and naming your babies, you are going to get attached. This is only natural. If you get screwed (and not in a good way), it's HIS fault. Not yours, and certainly not the Oxytocin.

Fact is, the older I get, the less likely I am to get attached to a casual hook-up. I used to do that when I was in my early twenties, and it worked out once, for a while. But that was only one out of, um, a lot.
Regarding the stoppage of casual relationships, very simple: If you're having a dating dry spell, like yours truly, where are you supposed to get it? Nature calls in several different ways, and hell, sometimes I need to answer the phone.

4. You're a liar - McMillan's got another good point here. If you are not comfortable in a casual relationship, don't be in it. Let it be known that you want what you want. It's not a sin to assert yourself.

5. You're selfish - I don't see what the harm is in thinking about your career, your thighs, or your naso-labial folds. There is, however, a lot wrong in thinking a guy can solve your problems. If you think a man will fix you, stay single and learn to be with yourself. Men, like your friends' opinions of you, will come and go. You'll be with you forever.

The trick here is being open to the fact that one day, as McMillan says, it won't be all about you anymore. You will have to take care of your man, your kids, etc. You will have to love somebody other than yourself. Before you go looking for a mate, you best be sure you have something to bring to the table. Be sure you have a lot of love, respect and patience to give. You're gonna need it.

6. You're not good enough - Of course I don't think that, and neither does McMillan. When you start doubting yourself, go look in the mirror, declare your greatness, smile and wink, smack your own ass, whatever you have to do. But never doubt yourself.

McMillan is absolutely right on this one: "women who don't know their own worth make terrible wives." Out of all my guy-friends, I have only one who already figured this out. I bet you anything he'll be married soon, and he will have his family. Why? He's smart and has character and he knows that women who know and respect themselves are wifey material. He can tell if a woman has this trait really quickly.

Remember what I said about not worrying what you look like nekkid because your man already won the lottery? Go forth in the world thinking that, and make sure you have love, honesty, generosity and respect to back that up.

As for Ms. Tracy McMillan, if I need advice on writing a TV show or maybe a question on parenting (she has a 13 year old son), I'll call her. For advice on love, I'll look elsewhere, thank you very much. My biggest issue with her is that she's trying to say that she is some sort of expert on snagging a husband. And maybe she is, but certainly not on keeping one, because she didn't know herself enough to realize what was good for her. Because she can get them to the altar yet not keep them by her side, she is an expert in nothing but desperation. She'd do well to follow her own advice and know her worth. She covers for her lack of sense of self very well by telling others that they have fundamental problems.

I can agree with her that marriage won't fix you. I also agree that marriage is not all about getting something. It's about giving too. I can't stress enough what McMillan said about that certain point when life ceases to be all about you. Leave yourself open for that and for many things. Life has tons of options. Although there is such a thing as fate, for the most part, life does not lead you, you lead it.

This Christmas

2010-12-21T15:12:00.003-05:00

This Christmas is going to suck.

That's what I've been thinking for months now. Thursday morning, I will be taking the bus to DC to visit my mom for the holiday. I don't want to go. I don't really want to do Christmas this year. Last Christmas was the end of it being a fun holiday for me.

Really, my fun Christmases ended when I was 16. That was the last one I had with daddy before he had his stroke. That was the last one that he enjoyed just as much as I did. For my 17th Christmas to my 22nd, he was pretty blah about the whole thing. But I had my whole month off of school to hang out, so I still got happy about it.

For my 23rd and all Christmases thereafter, I made up a routine:

Come home, sit and talk with daddy, go over the Christmas meal (yes, go over it. He had specific instructions - all food must be bland and relatively tasteless-while-being-tasty, just like the Christmas meals grandma used to make), supermarket list, chores, etc.

Go down to the mall and shop for last minute gifts. Go to market, buy turkey, etc.

Shuttle to mom's house. Have a great time with her while trying to relate to stepdad (a skill in which we both have improved tremendously). Bake stuff and make Christmas eve dinner.

Shuttle back to daddy's on Christmas day. Cook meal. Snap radio on to WPGC and listen to Donnie Hathaway sing Christmas songs while up to my elbows in homemade bread stuffing mix. While turkey cooks, go in to daddy's room, read the Post, and ask daddy all manner of questions like I did when I was little, all of which he'd answer lovingly. He liked it when I acted like a kid. Sometimes, I would do it on purpose. A couple of hours later, daddy and I would sit down to the meal. The worst parts of the holiday came in here: having to get daddy in his wheelchair and roll him out to the dining room, even though he could have walked it with his cane, and then having to serve him a plate and cut his meat for him. I never got used to those things. Of course, I would gladly do those things today.

Shuttle to mom's house for a few days. Hit Nieman-Marcus Last Call sale and get our hair did by Dusan, the hottest hairdresser on the planet (and straight!). Watch DVDs.

Back to daddy's.

Walk down to mall and sip a coffee while watching the ice-skaters in the courtyard.

Hit the after-Christmas sales with no one to tell me not to spend my money and not to buy this or that. Get daddy fast food for dinner (he loved his fast food so much).

See friends, but only if I absolutely had to. I much preferred to sit and read the Post with daddy and ask 50 gajillion questions, all of which were answered with a big smile.

Take a day to walk around DC and play tourist-in-my-own-hometown. One of the many things I loved about daddy is that he encouraged me to go out and do my own thing, and not to worry about him so much. Even on his death bed, I believe that he, if he had had the voice, would have said "Don't worry about me, Maria. I'll be OK."

This Christmas, I don't exactly know what I'm going to do, besides sit and have dinner with mom and stepdad, and visit daddy at the cemetery. Sounds like we are going to have a nice meal - tamales and all that Guatemalan food I really love. Mom is going to great lengths to make sure I enjoy this holiday. She knows it's important. And I love her so much for it.

One of the crappy things about death is that you can't curl up into a ball and ignore the world. You don't get to be selfish, if you have family or anyone that depends on you to keep a brave face. I don't know what this holiday is going to bring. I'm keeping my expectations low yet hoping for the best. Hell, hoping to just make it without crying.

Wish me luck.

For Roderick, 1969-2010

2010-11-01T16:14:00.003-04:00

Roderick was a close friend of mine who died last week of cancer. Doctors first found the colon cancer early in 2009, but since the cancer was detected early, the prognosis was good and he fought the first battle triumphantly. In the beginning of this year, he started to have pain in his lower back, and doctors found a mass, which they at first thought was benign, putting pressure on a nerve. They removed the mass, and Roderick was on his way to recovery, so he thought, and we all did, too. Turns out it was cancer. Last Tuesday night, 26 October 2010, he lost the war. Throughout his whole ordeal, Roderick, although he let us know how he was doing, never expressed his pain or any emotions. And that's why we all thought that he was going to kick cancer in the ass and live a long, happy life with us and with his family. But it just wasn't in the cards.

Following is a note that I ended up writing on Facebook and sharing with my friends. We did have two events , thrown in his honor, where people expressed their sadness and words for our dear Roddy. But I couldn't bring myself to say out loud what I wanted to say, because the sadness was just too great. I knew that if I even opened my mouth, I would fall apart. And I did anyway, but I wanted to share my love. So here goes:

One of the first times I met Roddy online on Yelp, we got to talking about our mutual love for Jonathan Rhys-Myers. He told me how raunchy The Tudors was, and I said that I MUST see it, but that I didn't get showtime. So he asked for my address and sent me a DVD of the first three episodes. I'll add here, just in case you're not sure, that we had not met yet. A few weeks later, a group of us met at Amsterdam Billiards on 4th ave and 11th for Pool Night the First. Julie K was there, making a mockery of the billiards institution, yet sweetly giggling her way through it. Sean T. showed us all how to play "golf pool". We met the fabulous Drew B. I walked over to the bar, famished, to get what turned out to be the most horrible plate of nachos in creation, and I looked to my right and saw this dude in a Red Sox cap. "Are you Roderick?" I took him over and made introductions, then we played our own game of pool. I think the Red Sox game was on tv, and I told him Dan Petry (pitcher for the Tigers and then the Angels in the 80s) was my cousin. Ok, twice removed. But still. I knew, without really knowing Roddy yet, that he would appreciate this. He was impressed. And I was impressed that he even remembered Petry. The first of many of my obscure references and factoids that he would "get" instantly.

And that was the beginning of a beautiful spring and summer, and then fall and winter, and then spring and summer again, and so on. Riding in the mirthmobile listening to Girl Talk, going out late on school nights (one night in particular, I was already in my pj's and winding down late on a Tuesday, when I get a Gchat - "Do you need a ride?" "To where, Rod?" "umm, to Gibney's. I'll pick you up in a few."). Izu with Audrey and the gang. The impromptu road trip to DC after the impromptu picnic in Washington Square Park. Javier getting all excited to see the Watergate in person. Renting a car from Benny the Walking Flirt. The AuJaMaRoRo take-over of Sugar restaurant and Mason-Dixon. Roddy's parking pimp-hand ("Ummm, I'm only parked across the street."). Bon-Chon chicken. Bibimbop at Sura (Chicken. White rice.) Verlaine, of course. Our Olivia Newton-John duet. A million more memories.

The way Roddy looked on at everyone else's bickering, online and off, without ever (ever ever) joining in or even taking sides. The way people, who might have had a lot of bad words for everyone else, and I include myself here, never ever had a bad word to say about Roddy. Javier mentioned to me last night that Roddy had the ability to be friends with everyone, in every crowd, because he was never so full of himself that he couldn't see the good in every single person he crossed paths with. Now, that's an ability I only wish I had, and I think I might be improving in that department. Slowly, and someday, surely. Only now in his death do I realize that that is my goal, to let go of my own shit and just let it be. I think maybe he knows how much he's inspired me, and I'm sure many of you as well. And though I'm distraught, although I miss him terribly, I know that he'll never let go of us, just like we'll never let go of him. Just as we all hold his hand, he holds all of ours. He was our angel, and it was just time to give him back. But he still watches over us. This both comforts me and scares the holy hell out of me. I better try and not mess up. I always did want to look cute for my Tito Rick.

--------------------------

The wake, mass and funeral were held this past weekend. The family apparently had no idea how huge Roddy's group of friends was, and we were a comfort to them. I'm glad for that. But as everyone was concerned about how the family would hold up, it was our group of friends who just completely fell apart. Each and every one of us, including people who hadn't seen him in a long time. Roderick really touched our lives in such a positive way, and unfortunately, we never realized the magnitude of that until he died. But isn't that always the way? One thing we always knew: he made us feel good about ourselves, and we all loved him so much. He was magic.

Aftermath

2010-08-17T16:08:00.010-04:00

I have been reflecting on many things over the past 6+ months. Nothing like death, or the threat thereof, to make you take a look at your life. Here's what I've learned so far.....

1) I can get through most things and come out fairly unscathed.

I found myself talking to people who've lost a father just to see what was normal in the grieving process and what I should be concerned about. Turns out that everything I'm feeling is normal. That's the good news. The bad news is that the excruciating hole in my heart will never go away, and I'm told the only improvement will be that I learn to live "around" that hole. I'm still sorry for all the things I didn't do, and I mean stupid things, like chores that I kept putting off, like taking out daddy's old newspapers, buying him chocolates at the market or making a pot of the black beans he liked so much. I'm sorry that I didn't talk to him for over two weeks before he died (we had a habit of not talking for long periods of time - not because there was any love lost, but because he just didn't dig the phone). The bad news is that I will be sorry for the rest of my life.

We had the mass for daddy in March, the day before my birthday. The original plan was to take daddy's ashes and scatter them in several different places: at Myrtle Beach and Pawley's Island in South Carolina, in Baltimore at Camden Yards, in Tennessee at Morgan Manor (aka, my aunt Patty's old house), and a few others. But the priest told my mother that if we scattered the ashes, he couldn't give the mass. In Catholic lore, even if a person is cremated, his ashes must remain in tact because when judgement day comes around and everyone is risen from the dead, he needs to be complete with no arms or pieces of face missing. Something like that. Both daddy and grandma were Catholic, and grandma would have come down from heaven and gotten after me if I skipped the mass. Daddy would have said something like "Dammit, Maria, if you had any sense at all...." And so, a group of about 10 people, me, my mom, two of my high school buds and several of his old co-workers gathered at the church where I was baptized, sang a horrible rendition of Amazing Grace, in which I didn't dare open my mouth for fear of falling apart, and fell apart anyway. The image of daddy's bright, smiling high school self in a graduation picture sitting next to the box of his ashes was ironic in the worst way possible.

In June came the actual burial. Daddy did two years in the Navy, which he referred to as his "cruise", and for his honorable discharge, he earned the right to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. This came as a relief to us, mostly because we couldn't decide where to put him after we found out we had to keep him all together. So off we went, again a small group of us, huddled under a white tent on a beautiful Washington, DC, day. Not a cloud in the sky. To the left of the cemetery, in the distance, I could see the Prospect House, where daddy lived when I was little. I remembered standing on a chair and sloshing my hands around in the kitchen sink, "washing dishes", the planes flying overhead on their way in to National, and the afternoons at the park looking up at the Iwo Jima memorial, which was almost in daddy's front lawn. To the right of the cemetery, I could see the building where he lived for 28 years and where I became a teenager, horrible to every adult except daddy. I was fine up until the seaman played Taps. Ladies and gentlemen, what you hear in the movies is nothing compared to the real-life rendition. It's heartbreaking to an unimaginable extent. And so is the 21 gun salute. Another seaman handed me the flag, which had been folded into a triangle, each fold symbolizing something important which I can't remember right now. Then I carried the box to his niche in the Cemetery's Columbarium, and that's where he rests. I hope he's keeping cool in there.

Meanwhile, I had shut down, and it was showing at work. My two bosses, both ladies and probably the first ones I had actually gotten along with in that sort of scenario, sat me down to let me know that. Some people would've taken this negatively. I took it as a slap in the face. A good slap, the kind that someone who truly likes/loves you would give you so that you wake up to be your best self again. Lord knows I am trying, and most days, I am succeeding in being my best self again.

I've survived all of this, plus cleaning out daddy's apartment, which has been an ordeal. And somewhere in all of that I managed to buy myself an apartment, which is madness just by itself. I also managed to get a little closer to God and have a bit more faith, just as it was being tested.

2) You cannot count on anyone but yourself.

I'm more like my dad than I thought I was, and I understand him better. I am a loner. The older I get, the more solitary I become. Yet I expect that when a friend or anyone else offers to do me a favor, they keep their promise. I wouldn't offer help if I wasn't prepared to give it, and I am always prepared to give it. However, I may need to rethink offering it so much. Just like daddy on all counts.

When you have a death in your family, everyone comes to you with "...if there's anything I can do for you....". Most times you don't accept help because they couldn't possibly help you. I mean, it's a beautiful thing to know you have people on your side, but they can't imagine the pain unless they've been through it themselves. I hate asking favors from people. I don't like the position it puts me in, and I don't like the expectations and the subsequent let-downs, which are unavoidable. It's not the fear of having to repay the favor; I have no problem doing that. I've had some friends accept to do specific things for me, only to back out at the last minute. I've been told on several occasions that I shouldn't be afraid to ask friends for favors. Maybe this is why I don't: because I know I'll resent them if they back out. And sure enough.....

I want to add, in a separate paragraph so that it is not passed over, that others can truly surprise you. Friends that seem aloof or otherwise entangled in their own business can provide tons of comfort, and all they do is offer a shoulder to cry on. Others who have let you down in the past and who you may not have been on speaking terms with for the last, say, year and a half, offer their help as a complete surprise and do not take it back.

Even so, I'm not going to count on anyone but myself. And my mother. She's never let me down, EVER, even when I didn't deserve her help. If I don't count on anyone, I won't get disappointed and add more hurt to my life, because I take everything extremely personally. Despite all the encouragement to just let things roll off my back, I can't rid myself of that, and the last emotion I need to add to my current mix is disappointment.

3) I don't have to hang with anyone I don't want to.

This can lose me friends, I know that. My good friends are chums with a whole throng of people I don't particularly like. It doesn't bother me anymore that they ditch me to hang out with them. It does not bother me anymore that I'm sometimes invited to dinners or brunches that include the disliked ones(if I can accept the invitation, I will, with thanks and without "scenes"). What does bother me is the almost constant badgering to be friends with these people regardless of what it is I don't like about them. My friends might think I'm just full of negativity for not being chummy with whoever I tried to include in group plans and who made an ass-face through the whole outing, or who got drunk and started to pick on me relentlessly. Oh, that's just how she is? She's shy? Apparently, and I don't appreciate it. I've already had my share of making nice with people because I absolutely have to. I've already made up with people I've fought with in the past. I do my part. I'm tired of extending myself to people who don't need to take up my time. I'm not going to give people 15 chances to annoy me, because they will undoubtedly annoy me. I may be alone for the rest of my life, but I would have no one to blame but myself, and that's strangely liberating.

I look around me and I see oodles of people who are "set in their ways". This used to be a bad thing to me, and it continued to be until recently. As in, "she's old and set in her ways". The thing is, they're pretty happy people, but I am continually requested to change my shit, and it makes me doubt myself constantly. When do I get to be happy with myself? What's wrong with setting boundaries when it comes to the way others affect me? Why do I need to listen to people who tell me I should let things roll off my back, or try to get along with people because it makes it easier for others to be friends with both of us? What's in it for me? Should I really care if someone else thinks I am a negative person? I am who I am. Love me or hate me. What you see is what you get, and all that good stuff. This is of course not to say that one shouldn't be open and accepting. I'm just saying that you need to do whatever is necessary to be happy with yourself. After all, that is the most important thing. If your parents are anything like mine, that's all they want for you, right? It's all you should want for yourself.

I opened this year on such a positive note. I really had some high hopes. And God seems to have chosen this year to test the hell out of me. My father, who I adore, is dead. My mother is in almost constant pain yet still kicking. Two of my friends and my stepfather have cancer. One friend has diabetes. My cat died two weeks before my father. I'm trying to keep up those high hopes despite all this. It's been awfully hard for me to do that, but I realized I have to live in the now, for myself and not for someone else's viewing pleasure. Life is tiring enough. Keeping up appearances is positively exhausting.

They're not fighting. They're conversating.

2010-06-08T15:59:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, while at the office, my mom called. She likes to call me while in her car, then tell me she can't talk long because she is in her car. Anyway, I realized, once I got off the phone with her, that we have the loudest conversations, and it must bother the hell out of the chaste and hushed people I work with. I felt self-conscious for about two minutes, until I used my better judgement to decide that they could all fuck right off. But, my colleagues must think that my mother and I have the worst relationship because we "yell" at each other all the time. But really, we love each other to pieces, and we are just conversating.

When on cell phones, people talk just a bit louder because of the inherent cell phone issues, kind of like when one talks long distance. My mother and I bring this to a new level. I've always thought it was because:

1. We are both Latina. Therefore, even though we love each other, one of us has to speak the loudest. The other one loses. Now, I do not mind letting mami win, for it is my duty as daughter. I know my mother will raise hell on earth if she doesn't get her way. But sometimes, I get feisty, which is what happened yesterday.

2. We are both impatient. If she doesn't get something I say, I sigh audibly and explain. She gets all bent out of shape. Yet, if I don't get something she says, she sighs audibly and explains. BUT, we are only conversating at this point.

3. We come from a big family. My mother grew up with two brothers, and everyone knows the Latino baby is the little king of his castle. So imagine my mother trying to be sweet and girly when she has to compete with two spoiled little boys. Not happening. Now, the family has expanded in a crazy way, and I was always taught, if you see something you want, ask for it loudly. If you don't ask, you don't eat.

I am unapologetic for my volume. I don't see why I should apologize for being a product of my culture. I hate being shushed. If a man is out with me, he needs to know better than to shush me, for if he does, that's the first and last date.

As for my mother, if we STOP talking to each other, THEN there's a problem. But as long as we are yelling at each other, we're good. And I love that. So when you go to your Puerto Rican friend's house or you marry a Mexican with a huge family, do not get all upset when you are at the table and suddenly can't hear yourself think. They are not fighting. They're conversating.

It's been a month, and I still think you'll answer your phone.

2010-02-25T12:15:00.005-05:00

The title of this post is also my Facebook status message for today. A friend from college asked if it was another poem. Not this time. But she doesn't know why I posted that. Other people who don't know might ask if it's some sort of plea to an ex-lover or something. No, I don't really do that anymore (for if they leave I'd rather them stay gone).

I haven't told about 85% of my friends that my dad died one month ago. It's not that I don't want them to know. I'm not embarrassed. But I am always such a happy person, I feel like people count on that, and I really don't want to bring my sad news into the mix. Plus, there's no way for me to know that I won't start crying. I almost did that with one friend when we were having lunch and talking about dad. I'm also not sure if people will be able to handle it. I told MC and not 10 seconds later she asked me "Well.....Are you at least getting laid?" I realize she's one of those people who's never experienced death, so she wouldn't know what to say. She's also one of those people who thinks that fucking some random guy will fix everything. But I digress....

The time gaps between crying fits are getting longer every day, and that's how I know that I'm getting through this. My mom said that she thinks I'm being very strong with this and that she's proud of me, which is really something because it takes a lot for her to tell me she's proud of me. That's the other way I know. But I still do silly things. I call him, only half-realizing that he won't be picking up, and only remembering that I had his phone shut off after the recording does its thing 3 times. I have to write letters to friends and family (only 2 members remain) to tell them that daddy's dead. I was having trouble finding an address for our cousin Sister, so I decided to call daddy and ask. It took me a while to remember that he's the reason I have to write these letters to these people in the first place. I went to my exercise class on Tuesday night, and when I thought of daddy looking down at me from heaven, scotch and soda in hand and laughing hysterically as I sweat and cursed the instructor, I started to cry. In the middle of class. And I'm not good with embarrassment. But he would have said "Awwww, pumpkin, you look cute jumping around like that."

I still walk around not really seeing or noticing anything but my shuffling feet. When I hang out with friends, I have a hard time paying attention to what they're telling me and often have to ask them to repeat themselves. Work takes all the energy I have right now, because here, I have no choice BUT to be coherent. Everyone's been really nice and understanding, but there's only so much slack they can give me. And there's only so much sympathy I can take. At the end of the day, I am drained.

On the other hand, I can now make it through an entire Blossom Dearie song, as well as Thelonious Monk, as long as it's a short piece, without bawling. Still can't do "April in Paris" or "The Man I Love" (original or with Miles Davis). Those are a tad longer than usual. I'm hoping to take a Boot Camp class three times a week in March. I'm sure it'll give me back some energy, and give me some drive to switch my eating habits back to what they were when I first took Boot Camp. I've been ODing on sugar since daddy died. Not because it makes me feel any better, but because I stopped giving a shit about a lot of things.

Really, I just want to close the shades, turn off all the lights, watch sad movies, drink bottles of scotch and have absolutely no contact with the outside world, save only for a few friends who are close to me and who have been very supportive. And I'll thank them one day, as soon as I can do it without crying. My consolations are these good friends: JT, AJ, Khi, JM, and poor DG, who leaves my house with his t-shirt soaked with tears every time. I don't really care to talk to anyone else but these people and my mother. I had to push myself hard to go to AJ's birthday karaoke last week (I wouldn't have gone for anyone else, though). On certain days I will say that work saves me, because I'd be a hermit without it, and it would be 50 times harder for me to get out of my haze.

Daddy would disapprove of this, of course. He would say, "Come on Maria!!!! Run yo' feets!!!! Hop to it!!!!" And that's what I hear in the morning, and that's what gets me out of bed. All he wanted was for me to get the best out of life. He never pressured me to be a certain thing, like a doctor or whatever. He just wanted me to be happy, smart and practical. I joined this group on facebook yesterday for people whose fathers are dead. The question of the day: "Who do you get your advice from now?" My answer: No one. I never asked daddy for advice. But he would let me know if I was wrong as well as if I was right. He gave me his values. And that's how he shaped me into who I am today. No one else's opinion really counts for me. It seldom did. It was all about daddy. And I thank God He left him around for as long as He did. Now I just have to learn to live until I see daddy again.

KCM, Jr., 1935-2010

2010-01-26T11:34:00.007-05:00

When daddy had a stroke in 1993, when I was 17, none of us thought he'd make it even 5 years. He lived for another 17. There were arm spasms and a seizure and subsequent hospital visit, and he was left almost paralyzed on the left side of his body. He could walk, but very slow and with a quad cane. No driving, and he didn't go out much. But nothing major happened until this past December.

A couple of weeks before I arrived in DC for Christmas, daddy had a mini-stroke and lost the ability to read or do his beloved crossword puzzles. We both wondered what he would do with himself without these things. But he regained those abilities two days later. By the time I saw him, though, he was fine. Last Sunday, he had another small stroke and again lost the ability to read or write. The major stroke that eventually killed him happened sometime on Tuesday afternoon (19 January). The doctors did a CT scan and saw massive bleeding in daddy's head, as well as the damage from the other strokes, which was more extensive than we thought.

By the time I got to DC and saw him on Wednesday morning, daddy was still holding on, but he couldn't (technically) see, hear, or feel. I asked him to squeeze my hand if he could hear me, though, and he did. He even opened his eyes and looked at me for a nanosecond, and I am positive he saw me. However, when we went back to see him that night, he was super agitated and trying to take out his catheter and fluid tube and get out of bed. This time he couldn't hear or see me, and he kept trying to let go of my hand so he could get out.

Thursday morning, we met with the palliative care doctor and his nurse. The prognosis was very poor, and even if daddy did make it out alive, he would be a vegetable. I honored daddy's wishes and let him go. I watched the nurses take out his feeding tube along with everything else. I freaked out. He was moved to another room, where he got a morphine drip to keep him relaxed. He held on, and when he awoke from the haze, he would moan. Just short moans. But mostly, he slept. We went home and I called the phone company to have his phone disconnected. I called the Washington Post to have his subscription cancelled. I called the cable company. Wrote his obituary.

Friday, I went to daddy's room to meet the hospice care worker, Betty, a very nice lady from Georgia. She told me that they would keep him at the hospital for a few more days on the morphine drip, and if he survived until Tuesday, today, he would be moved, morphine and all, to a nursing home where they often tended to terminal patients. After Betty left, I stayed with dad and held his hand. That night, my mom and I decided I would go back to NYC and then come back for the service and the "administrative" stuff, like the bank accounts, the house, etc. Throughout all this, I was terrified that he would die alone. I didn't want to leave him. But I had to continue my life. He would have wanted that. So I bought my bus ticket.

On Saturday, I went to the hospital to say my goodbyes. I cried a lot and I prayed with him. I held his hand. Noticed how his fingers were like mine, short and chubby. His hands looked like crinkled paper. His cheeks were sallow, but he looked so young. When I left, I gave him a kiss on the cheek, told him I'd see him again, and although medically speaking, he was completely out and couldn't feel anything, I saw his head turn towards me, the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. I know he was smiling, and if he could have talked, he would have said something like, "Don't worry about me. I'm OK." He always said that. Mom and I went to his house to start the clean-out process. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but I surprised myself.

I went home Sunday. Sat on the couch and watched TV with my cat, JP. I eventually fell asleep. At around 5 am, I woke up to find JP sitting next to me, staring up at me. I had a picture pop into my mind. It was just for a second, but I remember it clearly.

Daddy was in his hospital room, lying in bed. He wasn't moving, but his eyes were wide open, looking to his left. He had a slight smile on his face. His cheeks were full and young. Standing at the left side of the bed were a huge group of people: grandma and grandpa were there, as well as aunt Ida, Ruth, and the rest of my grandma's brothers and sisters. I had never met grandma's family, but I knew Ida and Ruth from pictures. Grandma's parents were there too; I recognized them from pictures. Great-grandpa was wearing his dark hat and thick mustache. My grandpa's parents, who had died when grandpa was 14, were also there, and I recognized great-grandma from a picture. Uncle Walter, also known as Big Sonny, was there with aunt Patty and their son, Little Sonny. I didn't recognize the others, but I knew they were family. Grandma and grandpa looked as they did in their fifties. Ida looked as she did in her thirties or forties. Grandma wore a white dress.

Then I got the call from daddy's nurse that he had passed on. He was calm and comfortable, she said. I thanked her and called my mother to tell her.

I surprised myself again, and I got out of bed this morning. I breathed in and out. I cry every so often, when I see his picture or listen to his favorite songs or read letters he wrote to me. I missed having someone to talk about the new senator from Massachusetts with. I never got to discuss with him the biography of RFK that I've been reading. I want to know more about Jimmy Hoffa "pleading the fifth" before the Rackets Committee in the '50's, but I can't call him. These things I cannot discuss with my mother. Daddy and I did not just have the typical father-daughter relationship. We were best friends. We were supernatural. We were devoted to each other in a way that few people, including my mother, understood. No one could ever make my eyes light up with pure happiness just on sight like daddy did. And I just really miss saying, "Hi daddy", and hearing him say, "Hi Maria", in his slight southern drawl that made my name sound much longer than it is.

Yesterday, I had to sign the authorization form to have daddy cremated, and it was the most surreal thing I'll probably ever do. As I walked home, I laughed to myself and thought, "Just like daddy to kick my ass into adulthood."

When I grow up.......

2009-12-03T14:39:00.003-05:00

This is a running list of things I plan NOT to do when and if I get pregnant:

-I will not complain that chivalry is dead because no one on the train will give up their seat for me when I'm eight months along. Yeah it sucks. But I already know chivalry is taking its last gasps, ESPECIALLY in NYC. This might not have happened if the stupid feminist movement, in which all women, like it or not, gave up their right to be treated like a fucking lady, had not taken place. Equal rights is cool, but militant women burning bras is not. Fact is, we still have tits. They were not given to us by a man to further subjugate the meek.

-I will not assume that strangers will carry my stroller up and down the stairs at the subway station.

-I will not use my kids stroller to a) carry groceries while the kid walks, or b) to make everyone get the hell out of my way (tempting as that is).

-I will not be oblivious to my surroundings and not hurt people with my stroller or sit around looking stupid while my kid yells at the top of his lungs for no reason on a crowded train. Speaking of the subway, I promise to use a snuggly thing to carry the kid around as much as I can. The MTA doesn't allow stollers on the trains that are not folded up. They just turn the other cheek to be all PC towards mothers. That doesn't mean the rule doesn't make sense and should not be followed.

-I will not subject the general public to my mothering ways, or lack thereof.

-I will not breastfeed in public. Since I wouldn't normally walk around topless, I'm not going to use my kid to justify my doing so. If a bare boob is not acceptable in public, a bare boob with a kid attached to it should not be acceptable either.

-I will not neglect to discipline my child. Newsflash, mommies of today: this is the big issue everyone has with you ladies. Your kids scream and yell and carry on, having fits at every turn, because you are too squeamish to do your job as a parent. You should really learn to be a parent before you become one.

Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T14:59:00.002-05:00

What is this about "Let's thank the veterans because we wouldn't be able to live peaceful lives without them," blah blah blah? This is completely valid for the veterans of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, most wars up until Vietnam, because that's when the US started going to war for stupid reasons. So instead of thanking the veterans, I want to tell them that I am so sorry for the time they've wasted fighting unwinnable wars so that some politician can escape feeling like a failure for losing (this is why Johnson didn't pull troops out of Vietnam). I want to tell them that they're fighting for a country that will never welcome them home properly. They will not be fully compensated for their efforts. They will not be taken care of. This is the tragedy of it all, and the reason I can't celebrate Veteran's Day.

He dicho.

It Might Get Loud

2009-09-28T10:38:00.005-04:00

When I was 10, I was given a 2-3% chance of survival.

Let me explain. I sustained a head injury, in which my cerebellum was damaged and started to bleed, and doctors performed an emergency operation to take half my cerebellum out and relieve the pressure on my brain. They told my parents that IF I survived, I would be a vegetable. IF I survived, I would be in the hospital for months.

I got out of the hospital in one month.

I am here. And I am writing this.

Over the next few months, I taught myself, with some help of course, to crawl and then walk, to speak clearly and to feed myself all over again. The anger I felt then and would feel for the next 4 years was unbearable. I kept thinking that I would rather have died, and I lived that way everyday. I hate to say, but my mother got the worst of it. And when she remarried not even a year after I left the hospital, I got even angrier. Stepfather did not help the situation at all. He only made it worse. I lashed out, I was violent. The more my mom and stepfather slapped me around to try to keep me in line, the more violent I became. My mother made me go to a shrink for it all, but it didn't help. It just made me feel worse, and I know it contributed to the bad feelings between me and my mom. There was no doctor-patient confidentiality. She knew everything I told the shrink and would sometimes say it back to me almost verbatim, as if she was trying to make me feel bad for saying it, so there was no point, because the purpose was to have someone to talk to that would be objective.

At 14, I got myself thrown out of the house. I was actually already packed to leave by the time the huge fight between me and my stepfather, and eventually my mother, even started. They took me to my dad's house, and that's where I stayed until college. I would not be here today if I had stayed with my mom and stepfather. I know that.

At school, I became good friends with this British kid. You know, the cooky, geeky kind who looked like Piggy from Lord of the Flies (or what I would imagine Piggy to look like) and wore shorts in the dead of winter. Anyway, one day he gave me the first 4 Led Zeppelin albums on cassette. I took them home and listened. That music was the first thing that made me happy in a long time. It sounds silly, but Robert, Jimmy, John and Bonzo brought me back to life. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I concentrated on that music. I studied it. I loved it. I knew the timing of each and every one of Page's riffs and Plant's wails. It put positivity back into my life. There were songs that made me sad, but they were still hopeful, like the Rain Song or Ten Years Gone. They unplugged my insides so I could release all that anger and put other emotions in there and move ahead. They are lifelong favorites. Daddy saw my interest in this new music, and immediately took me out to the used record shop and bought me Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits. Then we went home and he showed me the rest of his music collection, mostly jazz but a lot of classic rock - CCR, Allman Brothers, Canned Heat, old Elvis, the Beatles, Velvet Underground, The Who..... "I want you to take anything you want," he said, and sat by me and recommended things. Dad rescued me in so many ways, and that's why I am so attached to him. Rock does indeed say "Here I am, and fuck you if you can't understand me." I needed to hear that. I needed someone to tell me it was OK to feel that way.

This past weekend, I went to see It Might Get Loud, a documentary in which Page, The Edge and Jack White sit in a room and play each other's music and discuss the craft of playing guitar. They also each go over how they got started and what music is to them. It could have been 6 hours long, and I still would have sat through the whole thing, completely mesmerized. I remembered all the things Jimmy did for me that he doesn't even know about and most likely would have trouble understanding. He saved my life. Music saved my life, and it still does everyday. It holds my hand.

"These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion - I seek the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient - Upon us all a little rain must fall...It's just a little rain..."

PS - Out of all my friends in the world, only one person will understand this post, and he was actually there for some of the story. Ranjiva - this post's for you.

Dear You

2009-09-23T14:26:00.007-04:00

Dear You,

At first, I was sad to hear that you were leaving. But now, good riddance. For the record, my friendship with you was, for my part, true. My friends are my family. I respect them, honor them and try to make them smile as much as I possibly can. When I make friends, it is, at first anyway, for life. So to hear you refer to your friendship with me as "transient" makes me want to throw up. Transient? Are you fucking kidding me? I deserted you when you needed me? I left you? I made no attempt to contact you when the going got rough? Really? You need to rethink that statement: How many texts and other messages did I leave for you that went unanswered by your Highness? By the way, I never took that as you disregarding me. I just attributed your non-answer to you being busy with all the things you had on your plate. And I thought that at least you would get those messages and know that I cared. If you ever come back to this city, I'll make good on the transient thing and disappear from your life. As a matter of fact, I'll do that effective immediately.

Just so you are aware, there are just some things in life that people can't agree to for it would make them The Chump. But you went and did exactly what you wanted anyway, no matter who you hurt in the process of getting your kicks. And something tells me that you are not hurting at all. If you were, you wouldn't have rejected 95% of the people who DID love you for who you were, or at least who we thought you were. So spare us your sob stories. Some people might believe you, but we know better. You are full of shit.

I know I am supposed to keep my mouth shut, but if you ever bothered to notice things about me, you would know that keeping my mouth shut is not my strong suit.

And so, good night and good luck.

Sincerely,
Me.

RIP, Teddy Kennedy

2009-08-26T13:51:00.004-04:00

It always makes me so happy and proud when I say something that my father agrees with. He is my source of validation, and the only one that really matters to me. I called him this morning to see how he was doing in light of last night's death of Senator Edward Kennedy. He hadn't even heard. When I broke the news, daddy kept saying how sorry he was, and for the first time in my life, I heard his voice tremble slightly. It became clear to me that Teddy was, like his brothers before him, one of America's great hopes. The way things are going nowadays, I believe he was our last, and consequently, today I feel the tears welling up every now and again as I read his obituaries.

I never really gave Teddy much thought until recently when I listened to his speech at the DNC. The 2009 HBO documentary taught me about his life's work, which was truly inspiring, mostly for the resilience with which he carried out that work. I was intrigued, albeit much too late. When they found a tumor in his brain last year, I knew he didn't have a lot of time left, and what little time there was would be rough. But as always, he came back. He wanted to be there for the 2008 DNC, and he was. He wanted to be there for Obama's inauguration, and he was. He witnessed some of the best times in history, hell, he MADE some of the best times in history. And even after experiencing times of profound grief, he always came back and stayed true to his commitment to continuing the work of his brothers and seeing to it that ALL Americans get their due.

Teddy fought for universal healthcare, and in 2006, the people of Massachusetts got it. He fought for an increase in the minimum wage, and in 2007, Congress raised it. He wasn't afraid to speak out, and in 2004, Teddy said, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam, and this country needs a new president." In 2008, he endorsed Obama and made that great speech in Denver: "And this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on." And Barack won.

I suggested to daddy (and he thought I was right) that Bobby and Teddy were "the brains of the operation". John was the image with which to promote their product. Regardless, all three were, are, and will always be the embodiment of commitment to the common good, great ideas combined with hard work and an unmatched strength and resilience that they carried with them into every area of their public and private lives.

When I think of Teddy Kennedy and his fight for universal healthcare, I think of my dad. Daddy taught me a great deal of what I know now. He taught me to think and to question. He inspires me, regardless of his failures and faltering strength. While daddy's work was on a much smaller scale, the purpose was the same: to get people their due. Daddy's work was in Latin America, and one of his achievements that I'll never forget is when he found money in his organization's budget to provide sorely needed incubators for a hospital in rural Honduras. No one else bothered to look for that money or to lobby for it from the donors. But daddy left no stone unturned, and after that, everyone knew him as "the guy to get things done." He never accepted praise, and insisted he was just a simple man doing his job. And there is the parallel I draw between my father and Teddy: two men with a tremendous sense of humility, humanity and work ethic whose purpose was to make a difference.

Mention of Teddy Kennedy calls to mind the words with which he eulogized his brother Bobby*. I love hearing that speech because, towards the end, Teddy's voice trembles. You realize that nothing and no one is perfect, that everyone has emotions and are sometimes consumed by them. What always remains is hope. It's everything. Teddy held it in his hands.

* - "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

Do Women Make Better Bosses?

2009-08-13T10:48:00.003-04:00

Let me stifle my uncontrollable laughter long enough to tell you that this entry is based on a posting on a New York Times opinion blog .

It has been my experience that women bosses/managers at the United Nations and even in the private sector are, for the most part, wicked, horrible, spiteful people. Not to men. Just to other women. There are exceptions, but these are pitifully few and very far between. One thing is for certain, however: the UN, and senior level management in most places, is still very much a Boys Club. As for the UN, positive changes take forever to pass through its doors. There are too many bureaucrats who would be inconvenienced by change and therefore, in self-preservation mode, they excel at putting them down. Thus, it is damn near a given that any woman at the UN in a position with any sort of power has had to fight long and hard for her post. And before I talk shit about these women, let me admit that I salute them for their efforts, however sneaky, underhanded or mean-spirited they may have been.

Exhibit A – CL. She was my second boss when I worked in publishing. I had heard such great things about her, and I had met her briefly when I worked in editorial as a temp. I went to production and then back to editorial for her. I didn’t think anything of it when I was told that she couldn’t keep an assistant for longer than 6 months. OK, she was tough, but I could take tough, and a year of working for her would take me to editor immediately. I didn’t know she was the Miranda Priestly of computer book publishing. I’m not going to go into it, because calling her the Miranda Priestly of computer book publishing is not at all an exaggeration, and I’m sure if you’ve seen the movie you can imagine what CL was like. The only difference was that I was called “what’s-your-name” instead of Andrea and she never threw her coat on my desk because she worked from home in Boston or thereabouts. She called me every 5 minutes not to give me guidance or help or anything, but to criticise me for various things, like taking a 5 minute cigarette break, when all I was doing was learning my job by myself with help from others. I quit after 6 months.

Side note: While I was in production, there was a managing editor who took to having me proofread her manuscripts, which were these huge technical and reference books. What was she so busy doing that she left her job to a newb? Her nails. She didn’t hide it. To her credit, she inadvertently taught me a skill I still use today.

Exhibit B - My second UN boss, SM. For the first year of my tenure in her office, the CTC, she was pretty horrible to me. My mom's heart must have ached every time I whined to her about how I was being treated, and she insisted that SM treated me the way she did was because in her country (India) there was a caste system and she was a Brahman and therefore very skeptical of me. My mother's proof: SM did not treat me with any respect until I returned from a vacation in Japan, during which I attended a charity golf tournament thrown by my aunt and uncle stationed in Tokyo. Also attending this tournament happened to be a member of the royal family. So when I showed pictures of my trip to my co-worker and he saw this royal lady and me in the same room, he immediately went to show the picture to SM, and that was what upped my stock. It so happened that the following year, we changed buildings, and in the absence of anyone else with a brain (that's arguable, just not by me), I became her right hand and a few co-workers I had been friendly with started to talk shit behind my back, obviously hurt that they had unceremoniously fallen out of favor. The secret of my success, in my mind, was that after several instances where I let SM have her go at me, I stopped being able to stomach it and "talked back". This surprised her, and that was when I saw a change in her attitude towards me. Lesson: SM pushed buttons whenever possible, and when she figured out I wasn't afraid of her, she started to respect me, and it was cake from then on. Regardless of how it all ended, what a bitchy thing of SM to do and what a waste of time. At the UN, keeping one's status is much more important then being productive. In this sense, critics of the UN are absolutely right. I imagine that much more could be done to reach goals and whatnot if the UN scrapped this archaic hierarchy. Well, other things too, but that’s another story for another time.

Exhibit C - LM. She was not my immediate boss, but as a person of a "higher grade", she thought she had the right to act as my boss. Out of all the crappy things she said to me, the way she treated me, the worst was the fact that she tried to block my promotion not once, but twice. 1. The UN staffing rules used to state that after two years at the G3 level, the staff member would be automatically promoted to the next level, G4. At the time, I was a G3 and our office was in the process of splitting into two separate entities serving the same Security Council committee. I was in the middle of that, and fortunately, my "real" boss was this Scottish lady, and LM had really just come on board and tried to take ownership of me. If she had been a nice person, I wouldn't have had to go over her head, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. In any case, the Scottish lady was much more reasonable (one of the "few and far between", to be sure) and helped me along, and soon, I got my promotion. Much to the chagrin of LM, of course. The second time I wanted a promotion (and suffice it to say, I was well overdue for it), I had to leave the office altogether. Lesson: The fear that this woman had of anyone climbing the UN ladder, even a little, was palpable. It was not just me she targeted, by the by. She did whatever she could to stop anyone from moving anywhere, regardless of whether it was a lateral move or a promotion. She just wanted to keep people in her service. An aside: she had a raging case of rosacea which reared its ugly head when she was stressed or frustrated. So whenever her efforts failed, her face would get red and spotty and blow up. It was quite a sight.

Exhibit D - My fifth UN boss, RC. I was actually really excited to join this new office, PBSO. In the interview, it sounded really right up my alley, and I think they were kind of excited to have me too. If I had had any inkling, however, of how it was going to end, I wouldn't have taken it in the first place. It was a promotion to G5, but I still would rather have stayed a G4 in my previous office. It was a colossal waste of time. RC was actually brought in after me, and I was unlucky enough to have her assigned to my team as my boss. So while I watched as my job was downgraded to keeping RC's schedule, I had to take her rude, disrespectful and condescending comments almost everyday. RC had a great professional reputation. I went into the relationship expecting a sort of "mentoring" kind of scenario. But RC was busy making sure I never felt proud of myself for a job well done, and that I never "got a big head". The emphasis was on me knowing my place. One of her comments, while I can't quote her and I don't remember all the situations where she said this, was that I could only make an administrative contribution to our section's work. This made it easy to disregard my ideas, whether or not they were good ones, and sometimes they were, according to co-workers also in our section. The kicker: After a year, she told me that PBSO would not renew my contract. One of the reasons she cited was that I never tried to make any contributions to the work of our section.

Which brings me to my current situation =)

Exhibit E - NS. NS is not my immediate boss, but has been allowed to take ownership of me, because her colleagues cower in her presence. This includes the ASG and the
P5. This of course would be fine with regard to distribution of supervisory obligations and whatnot, if she were a decent person, that is. But she's one strange bird. Rumours surround this woman. She’s disliked by many, yet others adore her. She has a great relationship with her niece and nephew, and her office is full of drawings and cards they’ve made for her. I suppose everything started out OK. I was not interviewed by her, and I suspect if I had been, she would have blocked me. They needed someone quickly for my current post, as the person I am replacing was leaving on mission in two weeks. I got on with everyone and learned the ropes really quickly. So quickly that in my second or third week here, the other two assistants took off on vacay and I was able to hold down the fort for the next few weeks by myself. In fact, I still often have to hold down the fort by myself. For whatever reason, one of the assistants is almost always out. The other assistant has arranged it so she doesn’t have to do anything for anyone (don’t ask). I often pull 12-13 hour days, sometimes three in a row. So it’s apparent I’ve put a lot of time and energy into this gig. NS appreciates exactly none of it. The other two people we work for, a Frenchman and a German girl (she’s my age, so she’s a girl, like it or not), presumably, don’t either, in part because of what NS has told them about my poor performance in terms of budget and staffing. And I’ll be the first to admit: my aptitudes do not at all lie in those areas. But any failures in those areas on my part are certainly not for lack of effort, and not for lack of trying to understand it. NS just brushes me off and/or snaps at me for nothering her. So there are times I'll sit in front of my computer, tearing my hair out, trying to figure out how in the hell I can do it myself without having to talk to NS. I often avoid her, actually. She's rude, disrespectful and snippy to me so often that I have had to ask her to please control her tones with me. I have since given up and have just accepted the fact that she’s going to be awful to me almost all the time. As for the other assistant, she had applied for my post and the others wanted to give it to her, but she was blocked by you-know-who, who cited her inability to do x, y and z, yet denied her training to do x, y and z as well. But in these weird changes of heart, NS brings me little gifts from her trips. When she went to Timor-Leste, she brought me this cute woven tapestry-thing. From her recent trip to Sri Lanka, her country, she brought me incense. But when she gave out Christmas cards last year, she left me off her list of recipients. She invited the ASG’s assistant to drinks tomorrow night within my earshot, but did not invite me.

Women have to work a lot harder to get positions of power. That much is true. So why are they so hell-bent on NOT being supportive of other women? Would they not want to help get more women into top spots so we can all take over the world??? Yet they treat men so much better. They kiss their asses. Even male assistants. So, if you find a position where the boss is a woman, don’t think you two will get along swimmingly. Odds are you won’t. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be chased around a desk.

Today, I'm going to

2008-08-05T10:07:00.001-04:00

Shut the fuck up and work. I feel like a bad girl.

Just sayin.

Question.......

2008-07-30T15:41:00.004-04:00

They say men and women can never be friends. Or at least, they never should be friends. I did not have this problem. One of my best friends is a guy. We're like Harry and Sally, minus the tension and the pity-fuck.

Recently, however, I developed that very problem. Or maybe it's more of a friend ditching me because an S. O. made an appearance in his/her life, which is not terribly unusual, but hurtful and disappointing nonetheless.

Recipe: Take a healthy amount of ditching, and add it to a pot already bubbling over with unusual amounts of time spent together, some weird sexual-like tension, semi-uncalled for comments, and a very generous amount of flirting. Add a pinch of kissing and cuddling to taste. When this mixture starts to make your other friends nervous, then you have the perfect base for the next layer: a fight, confusion, disappointment, confrontation, denial, and a lie or five. Add a sprig of secret relationship with other for flavor. With all these ingredients fighting and bubbling and mixing and simmering in a pot, is there room for the friendship that we started with? I don't think so, and it's awkward even thinking that me, friend AND S. O. hang in the same circle and will one day be forced to be in the same room. I am SO dreading that day. What's more, the "secret" of friend and S. O. was effectively kept from me by other friends, in particular, one I considered close and who was living in my house at the time, and another who now has aligned herself with friend, because they were afraid I would be hurt/flip out/hurt them/have to be committed to an insane asylum, or some such shit, which to me means that these people have no idea who I am. The secret is still being kept, and I know because I have only one honest advisor left. It goes without saying, but I'm saying it anyway, that both friend and S. O. are keeping completely mum, preferring that I find out through the changing of the relationship status on Facebook.

I don't really care that friend is in a relationship after swearing up and down he didn't want one, read: didn't want one with me, which is totally fine, and we talked about that, so he knows this, or at least he should. Why in the hell would I want to push someone into loving me? I always felt the fundamental thing was that we enjpoyed each other's company above everything (and everyone) else. Which would mean we would still hang out. The problem I have is that EVERYONE is acting like fucking children. I don't like having friends that feel they need to treat me with kid gloves, like I am some kind of ogre or something. That shit makes me feel worse than anything. I'm a fucking adult, for shit's sake. I'm the oldest one in the crew! Besides, queens are supposed to have an army of advisors loyal to her in some way. At least be somewhat loyal because I met most of these people first and I was the one who brought friend into our circle in the first place. I feel like I have to get a whole new group of friends.

So my question is: am I allowed to not ever invite those two, or some of their accomplices, to any event/outing/social occasion that I plan? Do I get to do that now? Cause, well, I already am, but I wanted to know if it's OK. Yeah, I have a very fucked up and non-linear way of doing things, I know this.

It's been a long time, shouldn't have left you......

2008-07-28T11:11:00.002-04:00

I'm gonna go ahead and dedicate this post to J. H., previously my kryptonite, but now one of my inspirations for picking up a pen. Or a keyboard. As the case may be. I have a lot to say but have had no desire to say it. I don't know why. But I realized that my previous excuse "I don't want to write because I already sit in front of a computer all day" is a bunch of bullshit. What do I do when I get home? Get on the internets with much less noble intentions. In any case, as M. H. said, "it's never too late". Yeah, I just need my ass kicked sometimes.

I talk a lot about the dumbing down of America. I usually blame Bush for it, but recently, I put a little more thought into things. There's no denying that he's helped legitimize the idiot's case in a major way. Just look at the 2004 election. But this has been a phenomenon I have observed for a long time now, beginning probably around 1997, when I was a junior in college, lamenting the younger classes with their rich parents (read: no tuition assistance needed) and their harder drugs. That was the end of SLC as an "Art School" and the beginning of it as a sort of "Confederacy of Dunces", if you will. When SLC was an art school, there were a bunch of different personalities, but all with one thing in common: We were the high school rejects. We were never popular because we weren't interested in the trivial shit ("When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift. I really don't care how elitist that makes me look, by the way) or we were different in some sort of way, like how we dressed and what sex we got it on with. We were the writers, the artists, the actors. The loners, the weird drama kids. So we finally got our something at SLC. At least that's how I felt. But the "cool kids" always find a way to ruin it for the rest of us. In that sense, they aren't so stupid and clueless. At the end of my junior year, when it came out exactly how many overdoses/hospital visits had happened during the course of the year, the campus shut down and went into insular mode, meaning all social activity ceased. I visited SLC in September 1999 and was amazed to see that no one was hanging out on the lawn. Used to be that the lawn was the place to meet all the new kids, to dance around, to write, to hang out in the warm weather. Honestly, it looked sort of like a Dead concert without the acid. Coincidentally, I spent a good bit of time listening to "Uncle John's Band" and whatnot on the lawn, but anyway..... Things looked boring and a little scary/surreal to me. Cool kids win again. And SLC was all the dumber for it. So don't ask me why I never give them money. They lost themselves in the drive to stop giving out too much aid, to attract more male students, to make it a more homogenous experience. TO RUIN IT.

So, 2008 and the Internets. Last year, I signed up for a (fairly) new website in which people wrote reviews of restaurants, parks, monuments, etc., and there was this kick-ass community attached to it. I really enjoyed it. I wasted shitloads of time there. I met several excellent people. Also learned a lot of lessons, some about human nature, some about not expecting too much from people. But recently, it has been hijacked. Not really, but there's a new crowd. They don't talk about anything important. They seem to like to sound very intelligent when the mood strikes, but whenever they do, it reeks of an opportunity to blast someone else, not to actually put out some sort of actual thought. Nothing new. So a bunch of the original community live in exile, because they just don't enjoy these other people. So someone starts a thread about how some of this new shit/people just isn't/aren't funny. I agree, and I said so. Their reply? "There's no profit in trying to categorically decide what is and isn't funny." But it SURE IS "profitable" to spend all day not thinking and commenting about boners, isn't it? It was a self-preservation tactic on his part, so I'll let that slide, even though he's basically saying "We're idiots and shut up about it" in a very varity football kind of way. Whatever. I'll let them win again. Most of the OG's have lost interest, and funnily enough, that includes "the mayor". Just don't be surprised when it's all RUINED. And let me add here that there is something about kids born in the eighties, like after 81 or 82. Some are OK. Most of them are just weird.

So is this blog my new self-imposed exile? We'll see.

I Can't Stand the Rain.....

2007-08-09T10:56:00.000-04:00

I wonder why I keep naming posts with song titles. Maybe it's because my iPod has become an extension of my hand.....In any case, I am feeling hungover and supremely lazy. Add to that the fact that my co-worker will not leave me alone with these fucking travel costs. I'm sayin', how about nobody fucking goes any-fucking-where? Problem solved, everyone's happy, corporization saves money. So my brain is twisting back into knots after I worked so hard to untie it all last night. Maybe a little too hard. So, I'm posting this here article in the NY Times City Room blog about yesterday's events. Read this too. It's called "Constructive Bitching".

Look at the comments that follow the post. I agree with 1, 2, 6, 7, and hell, pretty much all the ones that point the finger at the MTA one way or another and make Bloomberg out to be the lap dog that he is. And where the fuck was Spitzer during all of this? You know, Albany is not that far from the city. I'd hate to think he's another member of the "New York City Drop Dead" contingent. Anyway, read the article.

Why I Love John Edwards

2007-05-25T10:47:00.000-04:00

I have told this story a million times to a million people, and here it is again: I met John Edwards after a US Airways flight to New York from Washington in January of 2005. I spent the whole flight glancing back at him and his wife, wondering if i should speak to them. I decided not to given the folks already asking for autographs during the whole flight. So when we finally got to the baggage claim at La Guardia, I saw him standing alone, so I went right up, shook his hand and said "Hello, Mr. Edwards. I just wanted to thank you for running in this past election. You gave us hope." He was just about the nicest man ever, with that Southern accent that I love, and said "Well, thank you for that. That makes my day."

One of the perks of being at the UN is that I get a Counter-terrorism newsletter, with articles from all around the world that concern C-T. I've technically left the realm of C-T, but I met the guy in DPI who circulates it and convinced him to keep me on the mailing list. This morning, I read a great Reuters article about Edwards' foreign policy plans. Check it out. Of course, the White House has immediately set to whining, accusing and other forms of bellyaching.

I am officially torn. First, we have Edwards, who tells it like it is. We have Obama, who knows what it is but plays the diplomatic game very well and ends up clouding the message. Then we have Hilary, who is not really sure yet what it is, and is waiting for guidance from her husband (which is not such a bad thing, since things can only go uphill from here).

Right this second, I will say that I love John Edwards with all my liberal heart. I would love to see a man in office who sees things for what they are and expresses his opinions with little to no censorship. I know America is not ready for it, though, and that's really sad. All we can do is hope for redemption. At least Edwards is a sign of intelligence, and I appreciate him for that.

Failure

2007-05-02T10:23:00.000-04:00

Once again, Bush has stepped in the way of progress. Within hours of getting the Iraq timetable bill from Congress, he vetoed it. In the NY Times article, Bush actually said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.” Don’t they do that already? Wasn’t it those very politicians who made the troops go over there to fight in the first place? His pathetically stupid commentary at every turn takes any logic or reason he may have used to make his decision right out of the equation.

On the BBC website, it makes light of the fact that he has only used two vetoes in his 7 years of presidency. This could be for two reasons: Republicans had the biggest piece of the Washington pie until just recently, so he never had to, and/or, he just recently found out what a veto is for. I think it’s the latter, but I don’t want to seem too pessimistic.

As usual, Bush says that failure is not an option. Of course it isn’t an option, and I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks it is an option for anything. But it happens, and in the case of the war, it is just fact. He needs to stop talking about his obvious fear of embarrassment and accept that both he, as president, and the war are probably the biggest failures this country has ever suffered, at least in the past 100 years or so. I say that because we, as a country, have already suffered a lot of failures, but the failure to learn from any of that is by far the biggest one.

Can someone help me out?

2007-03-30T10:16:00.000-04:00

After reading this BBC article, I can't understand why it is so important to Olmert's government (and those before) not to agree to go back to Israel's pre-1967 borders. Do they really need to hold on to everything? For what? And what was with Olmert's comment about "the countries who count in the Arab world...."? Doesn't EVERY COUNTRY count in some way? Seriously, I would love and need to hear people's answers to this questions, so if you've got one, bring it here.

Positivity

2007-03-29T14:13:00.000-04:00

Firstly, I feel that I've become hyper-aware of the positivity levels in my world. This is thanks in part to J., and as you might conclude, there are some comments that do not quickly cease to upset me, especially because of where and who they come from. According to many, I have a lot of positivity in my life, but some comments, especially those made to my blog posts, wherein I always try to end on a note of at least semiquasipositivity, make me think that that's not shining through enough. Having said this, I'm not about to make any extra efforts to seem all happy and bouncy, but I will say that one or five complaints do not a depresso make. So, yeah, Swandad, it may seem like I am going slightly postal, but rest assured I am really a lovely, HAPPY person. Even moreso after I left that 7th circle of doom known as "my old office". I can be serious, but for the most part, I am very kid-like and smiley, to the point where guys think I am cute, almost never pretty or beautiful, which I guess is OK by me. I am especially childlike when I see things I like, and this can happen even in somewhat somber places like Barney's. Example: I'll find a coat that I particularly love. I clap my hands and go "oh goodie oh goodie oh goodie!". Then I look at the tags. It is on sale. I jump up and down. It is in my size. Yes! I exclaim, much like I did when I hit a baseball out of the park with my aluminum bat as a kid. This kind of thing, jumping up and down and shouting with glee, happens often, although I've never been asked to stop, except by my mom, who is easily embarrassed by me in general. So that's a little insight for you on the enigma that is me. There's just a lot of stupid shit going on in the world, and what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't bring it to your attention? Besides, if I always wrote about happy things and dotted my i's with little smiley faces and shit, you readers would tell me I suck, right? And you all have to admit, a little part of you loves to hear negative shit. It's human nature. It doesn't make you bad. It makes you a normal person.

Second, geez I am really not up on my news these days! I just read today, about a week after the fact, that the House passed a bill calling for withdrawal of troops in Iraq by March 2008. Today, the Senate followed suit, setting a bunch of benchmarks for withdrawal. Hallelujah! But wait....is this feasible? Um, probably not. At least not while Bush and company are around. But whatever afterglow, I mean, effects, of withdrawal (tee hee hee) will not be suffered by any of us Stateside. Even the American ego will only be bruised for about a month, and then everyone will gain perspective on this mistake and realize it was wrong, Cons, bedwetters and middle-of-the-road folk alike. The effects of our troop withdrawal (and God help Blair if he doesn't leave when we do) will be felt by the Iraqis, at least those who haven't already fled for their lives. But I have a theory, and this is where the positive thinking, and perhaps borderline naivite, depending on your leanings, comes into play: I think a large part of the fighting of the insurgents will end once we have the decency to leave. Note here that I said "part" and not "all". There will still be infighting between Sunnis and Shias and possibly the Kurds as well, which I realize qualifies as civil war. But that would be nothing new, as they have been fighting each other since long before God had the idea of creating this America place. Those who say civil war will break out if our troops leave are just a tad full of shit. As if our troops are holding it down. Those kids are getting their legs and arms blown off, that's what's happenening. I just read last night in the Village Voice about this very hot Puerto Rican soldier from the Bronx who lost 40% of his brain to a landmine. Now he is in a VA hospital in the Bronx, being cared for by his mother moreso than the nurses, and back to playing with GI Joes. He has the mind of a 6 year old now. He was tricked. He believed in Bush's cause, volunteered to go, and had his brains blown out. I sure hope Bush appreciates his sacrifice. But I digress.....Look, this be my thinking: We already had our civil war. We couldn't stop the Vietnamese from having theirs. Why do we need to try and stop the Iraqis from having one, especially when we should know by now that we can't?

Hearts and flowers and kisses to you all!!!!

Gray Hairs

2007-03-07T13:40:00.001-05:00

On the way home on Friday night, I stopped in ladies and just happened to look in the mirror, and it was then that I saw it...the Omen that would school me on what is to come. I spied my first gray hair, and before I could think about it, I plucked it out, and then remembered that 5 more would grow back in its place. I found those the next day. Anyway, I saved the plucked hair in a little porcelain box I got in London when I turned 29. I told my mother, who was visiting for the weekend, about the hair. She recently let her hair go after years of coloring it and totally rocks it, and was quick to tell me she had absolutely no sympathy for me, even as I stood there sniffing and sobbing and mourning the inevitable end of my good hair days.

Then I turned 31 yesterday. I'm not depressed about it, but I do feel as if God is dragging me through the years kicking and screaming. I'm not ready to go there yet! I don't think my thirties are the end of it all, but I'm just not ready yet. I didn't do anything to celebrate really, but I did have lunch with a few former co-workers of mine. We were actually celebrating one of them getting a promotion and going to another office, but they did a two-for-one deal and took me out, too, which was very nice of them. I had my Sake Ikura Don and a good-sized glass of sake (on the house) and was a happy camper. Then I went for my training session at the gym with S., the most beautiful trainer ever. I know this is true because usually, my admiration for unattainable men quickly goes away after it is drilled into my head that I cannot have him. But not with S. I still check him out whenever he's not looking and make that little purring noise I make when I find someone particularly delicious. Anyway, upon seeing me, he wished me a happy birthday and gave me a huge hug, actually lifting me off the ground with his muscular, football-playing self. Yum. Never mind that he almost squeezed the life right out of me. What a way to go! After our session, I went home, talked to my dad, and went to bed earlier than I have in years.

Turning 31 has made me think about changing some things. First, and I discussed this with mom (who was all gung-ho about it) and then my dad (who was all skeptical because he just bought his apartment and "claims" to not have the money. I have some and I can always get a loan), I am going to go to graduate school. I've picked Washington as the preferred place to do this, because DC is a great place for pontificating big mouths like me, and because I get to be with my parents and friends as I've been wanting to do for a while now. I had an informal look at my options, and GWU has a Latin American studies program within the International Relations graduate program. I am SO there! This year will be about prepping for and then taking the GRE. This time I will actually try to get a good score, unlike the SAT's, on which I let myself bomb because I knew what college I was going to and they did not insist on stellar scores.

The other change may not seem really important, but spiritually, it is. I decided to cut my hair in a pixie 'do. I got this idea from Lenny Kravitz, who said that cutting off his locks after so long was one of the best things he could have done to cleanse his spirit. So I will do the pixie 'do in lieu of shaving my entire head, which would expose the dents left over from my operation, which happened 21 years ago June 5th. This will expose the scar that runs from the nape of my neck all the way to the middle of the crown of my head, but fuck it. Considering that I had shaved the bottom half of my head when I went to college, and then wore my hair up, and was told "you are SO hard-core!", I don't really care.

This be my thinking.

Not that this is news to anyone.....

2007-02-27T12:44:00.001-05:00

.....but I was surprised to see just how many arsenals of nuclear and chemical weapons the US has and where they are located. You could be standing on one right now! Yesterday, it was DocDay on the Sundance channel, and I had just finished watching a doc. on the woman who made "Kandahar" and her search for her old friend in Afghanistan. It was really interesting to see what that country is really like and how people are surviving, especially when all we see on the news is bombed-out Kabul. After the doc., they ran a short where this guy showed a map of where the US keeps the very weapons it uses as reasons to threaten other countries with attack/occupation.

Calls to mind the comment that Amadeo just left for my "If israel Ain't happy..." post: "It's like going to a card game and the guy with an M-16 is bitching cause you tried to bring a snub-nose .38 with you."

Rigoberta Menchu: Presidenta de la Republica?

2007-02-23T12:54:00.000-05:00

Si la Menchu fuera elegida, me sorprenderia muchisimo. Por mi, hay tres razones por las cuales me sorprende mucho que haya puesto su candidatura:

1. Es mujer
2. Es indigena
3. No es la persona mas honesta del mundo. Entiendo que la mayoria de mandatarios del mundo tampoco lo son, pero la Menchu ya lo ha demostrado.

Sabiendo lo que sabemos del clima Guatemalteco en estos momentos, Menchu no ganara.

Menchu tiene muchas buenas ideas y podria traer una nueva agenda para Guatemala, pero en terminos de infrastructura, no creo que seria una buena opcion.

Que opinan los Guatemaltecos en la blogosfera?

Actualizacion, 27 Marzo

If Israel ain't happy, ain't nobody happy

2007-02-22T14:50:00.000-05:00

Not that I blame Israel for US meddling in the Middle East, and more recently, Iran, besides the obvious. But I have to wonder if the US would be so eager to attack and accuse in that region if Israel were in Europe, for instance. This article is about Iran being in breach of a UN resolution, which is quite enough of a problem, but would it be such a big problem for the US if Olmert weren't so "uncomfortable" with the fact that Iran is advancing their nuke program more quickly than anticipated?

When the Security Council passed a resolution on Iran, they gave the US full attack privileges. For consistency's sake, a resolution means that the UN will have to give it's blessing to Bush, assuming he comes here to ask permission again. That's what they did when Bush the Elder wanted to get Iraq out of Kuwait. On the other hand, if the US were to attack Iran now, at least it would be somewhat legal and maybe even a little justified.

I was discussing the America attacking Iran issue the other night with a very fickle and rude NYer (hope you are reading this, for you must learn). My argument was that the US would not dare attack Iran for the sole reason that they would plunge themselves (and our wallets) into a two front war. Attacking Iran would unleash both Hamas and Hezbollah, since the two would want to protect their benefactor. Israel has shown military prowess at many points in history. They have also shown the arrogance and utter carelessness that comes with prowess, but that is another story for another time. But would Israel be able to fight off Hamas, Hezbollah and whatever terrorist organization comes out of the woodwork, all at once? In any case, the US would be fighting Iraqi insurgents and Iran in the east, and Hamas and Hezbollah in the west. Rude Boy's argument was that Bush is just stupid enough to do it without caring what the consequences may be, and to be fair, Mr. Pres has already shown a slight lack of forethought. So Rude Boy could be right after all. I hope not, because then America would really be in for it. If we thought 9/11 was awful, just wait and see what would happen to us if Bush attacked Iran. Also, I don't like to be proven wrong by people who clearly lack character.

The Love Affair Between Bush and Two Dead Presidents

2007-02-09T17:06:00.000-05:00

Former president Harry S. Truman left office with a 22% approval rating in 1951, the lowest in presidential history. Why? Two things: First, Washington's spy in China, Chiang Kai-Shek, was quickly losing ground to Chairman Mao back in '49. Truman, knowing that rescuing his spy would involve the US in an unwinnable war, declined to interfere, despite protest from McCarthy and other reactionary folk. Then the gossip started that the State Department was full of Commies and McCarthy's 15 minutes began.

Second, Truman wanted to defeat the Communists who had invaded South Korea in 1950. The idea was that he'd push them right back to the Chinese border and both North and South Korea would be liberated. But he was not counting on the fact that China was horrified at the prospect of having American troops at their doorstep, which is why they joined the North Korean forces, and that was when Truman decided to throw out the idea of unifying Korea. General MacArthur demanded victory and wanted to drop a gang of bombs on Manchuria to prove his point, but instead, got canned, and thus the 38th parallel was born and the troops went home.

Ronald Reagan, well, most will agree. He sucked. But even he had sense enough to recognize that there are limits on the US' ability to save the world, and that some people just don't want to be saved. In '83, he sent about 1,000 troops to Lebanon to fight the terrorists there who had bombed their headquarters. But 4 months into it, he took back the troops and that was that.

Bush the Minor idolizes these guys. However, he fails to take the necessary lessons from them. One would think Bush crazy enough to be hearing voices from the beyond, telling him to throw down his weapons, but no. Instead, he seems to be competing with Truman to see who can leave office in the most disgrace. See, Truman was eventually exonerated of his "crimes" and now makes all sorts of Presidential "top 10" lists. Why's that? Because historians found that, at the end of the day, Truman exercised pretty good judgement, which is one of the necessary talents for the post of "Decider-in-Chief". Bush expects the same to happen with him. He would be like a painter, and once dead, everyone would realize he was the bee's knees. For all I know, it could happen that way. I would then have to go looking for another, less insane planet to live on, but it might happen.

So that's the history lesson/commentary for today, kids. By the by, Bush's approval rating is now something like 34-35%, meaning that this country is only using a litte over 5% of its collective brain. Let's pray for better days over the weekend.

"They're like the Viet Cong, they can wait it out"

2007-02-06T12:08:00.000-05:00

This is one of the last lines in an article in today's Washington Post in which several members of the American army wonder why Iraqis are so hostile to them. It is those two sentences that say it all....America will lose this one. But what exactly is the criteria for victory?

Does victory happen when more Iraqis get killed than Americans? If that's true, let the army come home, because they won pretty much from the get-go. Does victory happen when there are no more terrorists in the world? That's what Bush seems to hope to achieve, and that would indeed be a great thing, but it will unfortunately never happen. If it does, that's because someone went back in time to the sixties in their De Lorean and schooled the US on how not to support dictators in the Middle East and then supply them with the weapons to fight each other and on how to just leave other countries alone in general. Seems to me that the US just really wants to expand its sphere of influence, so to speak, and get yet a whole other region of the world to do whatever it wants. That most definitely will not happen, and the Middle East is the wrong place to go looking for cooperation. But even if that does happen, it will be a flash in the pan kind of thing. Bush has only to look at what's happening in Latin America to know that if you push hard enough, one day, even the friendly ones turn on you. And the US can't help but push.

Here are a few ways in which the US has been creating the war on terrorism for the past 40 or so years: The US set up the Shah of Iran way back in the day. Once the Iranians got tired of the Shah, many attached themselves to the Ayatollah Khomeini, who's main selling point, like some of the leftist leaders of today, was hatred of the US. That sounded good to most Iranians and they went along with his revolution, and thousands of America-hating terrorists were created, as were the conditions under which Iran would continue to support Hamas and Hezbollah to take care of the western part of the region. Oh, and wipe Israel off the face of the earth (which makes me wonder if Ahmadinejad wants to wipe out Israel because most Israelis are Jewish, because they "stole" Arab land, or because he want to piss off the US?). So, when Saddam wanted to go to war to get at Iran's oilfields, the US, in their playground rivalry, decided to give Saddam all sorts of tanks and jets and things and even went to the Gulf to help him fight the Iranians (maybe that's why Reagan couldn't recall what he did with the weapons he supposedly sold off in the eighties: he gave them all to Iraq). A battered Iran finally gave up the war effort, and thousands more terrorists were created. By the way, this all happened about 3 years before the US went to get Saddam out of Kuwait, which created more terrorists. You see that even the first Gulf war was not the first time the US "had relations" with Saddam's Iraq. After all, the US put Saddam there in the first place. Remember the feel-good image of Rumsfeld hugging Saddam and telling him that the priority was to kick Iranian ass? And so what if he was gassing the Kurds? According to Rummy, he could go ahead and do that and the US would later use the WMD thing to their advantage. Pretty cunning.

Fast forward to Bush the Minor. He insists that the US had a huge hand in "free" elections in Lebanon and Palestine, and of course, Iraq. He just neglected to mention that in these elections, the very terrorists he hopes to rid the world of were put in power by the people. He also failed to point out that after the Lebanese elections, there was that little skirmish with the Israelis, who the US supports without question, which put a bit of a wrench in the whole "democratization" plan. Why is it that terrorists are in power in those countries? I'm guessing because one of their main selling points was hatred of the US. And what does Bush do instead? Blame the Iranians for supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. So its sort of a maze that goes around and around and sort of comes back full circle. I realize that there are many other events and countries that are to blame for what's happening in the Middle East today, but the best example is the US, just because a) it's quite ironic that the US is so ardently fighting what it helped to create, and b) they play these games all the time and apparently have not learned a single thing from their experiences. If it didn't mean hundreds of thousands of people would die, the US' shenanigans would be really funny. The stuff of movies like Canadian Bacon or something.

Read the Post article. I really find these types of articles, where the troops on the ground get to tell their side of the story, a lot more interesting than stories about Bushco greedily wringing their hands and plotting and planning.

Rewriting the Constitution, Part 53 of the Mini-series

2007-02-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

According to an article in today's Washington Post, Judd Gregg, Republican Senator from New Hampshire, has put forth a resolution stating that, according to our Constitution (how cute of them to pull it out when they need it!) Congress "has the responsibility" to fund Bush's war, or rather, Congress has the responsibility to make us take out our wallets and fund Bush's war.

That's a load of crap, and he should know that from Civics class back in high school.

According to Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States:

"The Congress shall have power…To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain a navy; To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces…"

I didn't see anything in there about "responsibility" to do anything. Did you? The fact is, Congress has as much power now to declare this war over as they did when they gave Bush our billions last time around. But the problem is always consensus and looking good in the upcoming elections, and the latter is what will dictate the outcome. Let me note here, and I am most proud to do so, that the resolution of opposition to Bush's troop increase was largely drafted by a Republican, Sen. John Warner of the great state of Virginia, the suburbia of my youth.

Inconvenient Truths

2007-01-29T15:02:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, I saw An Inconvenient Truth and Road to Guantanamo. The latter is about a group of young British men (boys, really) of Pakistani origins who, while travelling through Pakistan and Afghanistan post-9/11, were picked up and taken to Guantanamo. It documents their travels, capture and stay at Guantanamo, which was about two years, with no proven reason for detainment, which is the condition under which most detainees were and are held. Truth needs no explanation.

In Truth, it was said that the US beats out all other countries in terms of releasing pollutants into the air. The US is also, of course, the most lax country in the world in instituting regulations and policies on environmental issues. The good news is that many states and cities are taking the initiative in this regard, and New York City is one of them, although some days you wouldn't know it to breath the air here! But what really got me was how quickly the damage is being done. The fact that we could have longer, hotter summers in my lifetime really scares me, as does the fact that my current apartment may soon be underwater along with the whole of lower Manhattan, not to mention the thought that my kids might have to wear gas masks every time they go outside. I KNOW that Con Ed and other energy services, which are ill-equipped to handle even today's demands, are not at all going to be able to handle the future.

I had to keep telling myself that Guantanamo, while largely the truth about the boys' experiences, may have been embellished a little for effect, not that embellishment was needed. I also realize that theirs may not be the worst of the stories that have come from former Guantanamo detainees. Moreover, I know that the US has yet to corner the market on torture and that many countries do worse. I think we all know that the US government ships their terror suspects to the countries that have made torture their chief export.

I don't have the words to express how embarrassing it is for me, as an American, to be associated with the American military and government. I guess Bob Herbert was right in his editorial about how we are not guilty enough, so scratch everything I said about that. It does seem a shame that we so easily go on with our lives when people are being detained and tortured and worse at the hands of our countrymen and women, especially when those men and women run around the world talking about how they are going to set examples for other, less "democratic" folk.

And here comes the outrageous comment: almost every American president has had an attempt on his life. Most countries have coup d'etats in their histories. Why hasn't someone tried to kill Bush, and why hasn't there been some junta or something to overthrow the government? Be assured, if I had the means to do the latter, I would definitely try it. That would be worth going to prison, to save my country from this regime. But spending the rest of my life in jail for offing white trash, only to leave another in his place? No way.

Sookeh-sookeh now!

2007-01-26T16:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I suppose that, in light of my findings for today, I have no more obligation to give you guys the dirt on my place of business. UN Truth and Mr Jan Pronk, Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) in Darfur, will do that for me. Note here that Pronk got in trouble for his blog, so he will be my first blog hero, sacrificing his standing as SRSG for the principles of free speech and communication to the masses. I post these links here and not in my link list because when and if the UN ever brings its staff rules into the 21st century and starts monitoring suspect blogs, I might have to be out of here, and I must say, that won't be much of a loss for my life. I certainly do not want want to grow into being a crotchety UN old-timer. I've seen what this place can do to people who've been here 20 or so odd years. Anyway, if I don't put the above links in the list over there ----->, the UN, since they have some lazy spies, might not get to it.

As for me and my little corner of the UN Secretariat building, I am doing OK. I have the same sorts of gripes about the way things work around here as I did about my last office, although much, much, much less severe, and really they are simply cases of perceived hierarchy, a condition which is RAMPANT at the UN. I find that the worst promulgators of this "caste system", if you will, are Europeans (the French in particular - regarde, les snots!), Middle Easterners and Africans. So what continent is left, right? The sense of entitlement also carries over when a General Service staff member becomes a "Professional" via the G to P exam, which is unfortunate. Imagine coming up in the ranks with someone you thought was your buddy, and then the buddy passes the exam and becomes your boss and starts kicking you around. I think the worst of all, though, is the one who claims to be your friend, talks tremendous amounts of shit about how "professionals" should do for themselves and how dare they mistreat others, and then turns around and hands her job over to you because she wants to make herself famous by writing research papers. This attitude exemplified by E. in my former office, who, so I've heard, still finds a way to complain about me two months after I left that God-forsaken place. And then, there is the "professional", my boss is one, who comes to talk to you, but not before she has read the entire content on your computer screen, even when whatever is on the screen is very obviously none of her fucking business. But it could be worse: I've heard tell about some GS staff who actually go insane and start talking to themselves. True story.

So, enjoy the gossip!

Flying Children

2007-01-25T17:07:00.001-05:00

Just a note to say that, last night, I heard that an AirTran flight was delayed because a little 3 year old wouldn't sit down, and mommy was too squeamish to make her. Eventually, however, they were thrown off the plane.

My personal experience with flying children: on a TEN HOUR flight from Buenos Aires to New York, I had a lovely man set his child in one of the two empty seats next to me so he could lay down and sleep. This kid must have been having some of those dreams where you feel like you're falling and then you physically stop yourself, because by the time I got off that plane, I had a nice little bruise on the side of my right thigh. And don't think I didn't say something to the father, who just smiled and said "He's only two." So I sicked the flight attendants on him and that was that.

I've just read comments from parents on a blog written by someone at the Washington Post about traveling with children. One comment says something like "let he who has never been a child cast the first stone". Oh come on now. Not for nothing, but I was a well-behaved child, mostly because I knew from a very early age that I would get my little ass whooped if I played too much. This is not at all to say that I was scared of my parents. On the contrary, I had a wonderful childhood, with wonderful parents, and often dream of being three again, and sometimes even act accordingly, dare I admit. When I was a kid travelling to Guatemala, Pan Am had a direct flight from Dulles to La Aurora, a good 4 hour flight. I asked my mom last night after seeing the AirTran bit if I ever resisted and/or misbehaved on the plane. She said "No, Mariposa, you were the best baby. Adult, I'm not so sure." I am sure this is because if I started to act up, mommy would give me the stare, and I would dutifully take my seat and laugh and giggle the whole way. I bet the thought of the marimbas that used to greet us at La Aurora definitely eased any tensions I may have had. I think the worst thing I did as a kid was hide inside the clothing racks when my mom dragged me to Garfinckel's, not that mom noticed until she almost went home without me one day.

So, yeah, the point....Kids are such little brats nowadays. But it's not their fault, and for all you parents that throw up your hands and say "Oh, she's only 2" when the lovely lady in the plane-seat next to your kid complains that your little angel is kicking her, know this: IT'S YOUR FAULT. Yes, that's right, I am thirty, single and childless and offering parenting advice. Do you want to stop getting dirty looks from strangers because you can't won't make your kids shut the hell up? Find a way to make them shut up without hurting them. Let them know that there are consequences for their actions, for one thing, and let them have some ownership of the crap they pull. AND....FOLLOW THROUGH and make good on whatever threat you issue them. If you don't instill in your kids a sense of morality, decency and responsibility early on, you'll have incorrigible little imps on your hands who will only grow up and get worse and become horrible, impish adults. And the cycle will continue with your grandchildren. So, parents, save yourselves, stop being so fucking squeamish with your kids. Give them discipline and they'll thank you later. Take it from someone who thanks her mother under her breath every time she passes some crotchety asshole on the street.

To illustrate my point, here's one from Overheard in New York:
Kid yelling: What are we doing after dinner? [Parents ignore him] What are we doing after dinner?!
Mom, calmly: Stop yelling, or I'll have to kill you.

--10th St, between Broadway & University

Some suggestions for NYC Nightlife

2007-01-25T15:09:00.000-05:00

First, read this article about a bar in the East Village called Heathers, which is a small after-hours space that doubles as an art gallery. On weekends, there is even a brunch that doubles as an art auction. Yet, some neighbors with nothing better to do, armed with their $1100 sound meter, anxiously call 311 (NYC complaint line) to whine whenever the level on said meter goes up (check out their picture in the article and you'll see of what I preach). The fact that the owner of Heathers is a cute little momma from Rockville, MD (my old hood, by extension) is not what influences my opinion. In fact, I hate the East Village with a passion and never go there unless I have a dinner date at Momofuku Noodle Bar, my favorite, drinks at the Telephone Bar or Dojo's on St. Marks. The reason: hipsters. I know most of them have up and gone to Williamsburg, but still. And these little boutiques that offer great-looking merchandise, expensive as hell though it is, until you realize that you will have to lose your lunch for the next week to get into anything south of Houston. What does influence my opinion in this particular case is that the purpose of Heathers is to revive the art scene of the early eighties, which is a very worthy cause. I also like the idea of there being a nice, warm, cozy spot in which to gather. Honestly, I have yet to go there, but I will soon, as I imagine it is the kind of spot where a patron will not be judged unkindly because their outfit is not black.

My first suggestion is directed at the neighbors, particularly the ones I mentioned, armed with their little sound meter. Sirs, you live in a neighborhood chock full of bars and restaurants and clubs. No one ever said New York City was "a nice place to live". It's rough and you have to put up with all kinds of shit you wouldn't tolerate anywhere else. A lot of people in NYC live near rattling subways, on busy main streets and avenues, near congested bridges, etc. I am also surprised that after paying East Village rents you still have $1100 left over to spend on a sound meter. My guess is that you are the same guys who, instead of doing a full days work, sit on milk crates in front of the corner bodega and eat Bear Claws all day, getting your money from the State one way or another.

My second suggestion is to those who want a quieter, more sane atmosphere for your watering hole, or what have you: do not admit Meatheads. Meatheads are extraordinarily stupid men, usually Bridge and Tunnel and sometimes with Jersey or Staten Island accents, who like to "throw their weight around" a lot and just generally be obnoxious. This would also make your women patrons feel much safer and improve the quality of those they decide to take home for the evening (because some girls need help making decisions). Although this rule, if followed, might put most Murray Hill bars out of business (sorry, Swandad), it wouldn't be much of a loss, trust me. The Meatheads will find other spots closer to home and other women to threaten.

Third suggestion: Don't let people drink until they vomit all over the bar. Prevention, people. Learn, live, love.

Fourth suggestion: For the love of Pete, let people smoke in bars! That way, they won't congregate outside and yell and scream and whatnot. You realize that noise on the streets was never that big of a problem until the City instituted the smoking ban in bars and kicked everybody to the curb.

Really, it's not like NYC is some old school Havana, with gambling and high-class hookers and whatnot (OK, it is, but only a little). But it's not meant to become an old-folks home either. New Yorkers love the status of their city as the cosmopolitan center of the universe. This means that the nightlife the city is famous for must be kept in tact. If you can't take the heat, get out of the fucking kitchen!

PS - I just had to include this little anecdote from Overheard in New York:

Young woman running up platform, slamming into tourist lady: Damn fucking tourists! Get the fuck out of my way!
Tourist lady: Excuse me, what?
Young woman: Don't be 'what'-ing me. I just gave you a New-fucking-York experience. You should be thanking me.

--Subway station, 42nd St

The Fool

2007-01-24T15:56:00.000-05:00

The Fool is the tarot card Wonkette put on their site to describe you-know-who. Why?
Well, the why's are obvious, in this case. But today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed up by Joe Biden of Delaware ("Hi....I'm in Delaware"), basically told Bush to go to hell. In their words, the escalation of troops was "not in the national interest."

On another note, the New York Times has put up on their site a "state of the Union in Words" thing-um-a-bob where you can see how many times Bush uttered a particular word in the State of the Union speech last night. Oh goodie! Now I can play Wonkette's SOTU drinking game even though I didn't watch the show. Note here that "Iraq/Iraqis" was uttered way more than "hope", "freedom", "social security", "insurance" and "economy" combined. "Balanced budget" was not even mentioned at all. How sad.

This time it's in North Korea

2007-01-23T15:37:00.000-05:00

Check this article from the Washington Times about the latest UN scandal. UNDP runs various projects in North Korea, and people are saying that Kim Jong Il is benefiting from it all. Fox News (which is only kinda sorta news) is screaming about how US taxpayers unknowingly facilitated N. K's nuke test last September. Be glad I didn't link the Heritage Foundation article, or shall I say, "research paper", about how the US should rush in and fix everything. It's really vomit-worthy. Funny...if the US government really wants the UN out of its hair, why do they insist that the UN is their problem to solve?

I won't split hairs and talk about how self-righteous every one's being, accusing the UN of being corrupt by definition, and how pots are constantly calling kettles black. I do agree, very much so, that the UN is in dire need of reforms, and increasing oversight of its projects is foremost. I often wonder about this place and some of the smarminess that exists here, although I still think that, generally, the UN does outstanding work (and that's not just because I work here), or it desperately, desperately wants to. It's a huge organization with many different agencies and offices and a lot on its collective plate, and the issues are not easily dealt with, as if the UN could sweep in and solve it all in a couple of days, like everyone thinks it can. Regarding the scandals, one must consider that, given the UN's size and scope, it really is hard to keep up with a couple of corrupt Cypriots, or wherever the corrupters hail from this time around.

Also check out this response to Wall Street Journal articles about UNDP's activities in North Korea from the Under-Secretary Geenral of the agency. It may also shed some light on the fact that the UN does not and cannot operate without the support of member States. More often than not, this includes the United States. Let us consider this in light of all the US's bellyaching.

Parking Diplomats

2007-01-19T10:18:00.000-05:00

One of my very faithful readers asked me to give "an insider's" opinion on the Diplomatic parking issue. All sorts of grumbles and gripes have surfaced, as well as whole research papers on "the Culture of Corruption", of which the parking issue is but one manifestation. First of all, check out the following stats, taken from the World Bank PSD blog:

A certain amount of corruption is grounded in culture and immune to carrots and sticks.

Scandinavian countries, which perennially rank among the least corrupt in the corruption index, had the fewest unpaid tickets. There were just 12 from the 66 diplomats from Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Almost all of these tickets went to one bad Finn.

Chad and Bangladesh, at the bottom of the corruption index, were among the worst scofflaws. They shirked 1,243 and 1,319 tickets, respectively, in spite of the fact that their UN missions were many times smaller than those of the Scandinavians.

But the above facts should be balanced with this, part of an article from CNN:

"After two hours, I come back to find a ticket on my car and another diplomatic car, but not on a nondiplomatic car," said Emilia Castro de Barish, the U.N. delegate from Costa Rica.

Let's consider that the City is taking unofficial revenge for this drama. A host of New Yorkers, liberal as they claim to be, want to see the UN leave New York. In other words, they are all for its existence, but not in their back yard, which sounds quite familiar, given that some who clamor for solar and wind power then don't want to have the solar panels or the windmills installed anywhere near their houses. Let us also consider the possibility that if/when the UN goes, a little bit of NYC's rep as the cosmopolitan center of the universe might go with it, seeing as the UN has been in and around NYC since its beginnings in 1947. In my opinion, the UN should stay in NYC, but if it does go, I'm certainly not going with it. I'm staying right here. Now if another RepubliCON usurps the presidency, that's another story.

I heard on NY1 that the Egyptians are among the worst offenders, or "scofflaws", as they say, and the Russians are the worst. Those Russians have this weird devil-may-care kind of mentality. They smoke on the conference room floor of the UN building and they have this non-chalant thing, like they take bong hits and drink vodka all day. And then all of a sudden we hear of one of them banging a shoe on his table at the General Assembly (I'm not necessarily talking about Kruschev, another Russian did that just recently). And let me just mention here, I looooove hearing them speak. They could be talking about their bouts with diarrhea and it still sounds romantic! I'm surprised that diplomats from the poorer African and Asian countries can afford to have fleets of diplomatic cars. I take comfort in the fact that most Latin American mission personnel take the subway/commuter train, I see more than a few every morning, so this parking ticket issue ain't our fault.

Of course these missions should pay up. After all, diplomats get the big bucks, especially when compared to workers in their own countries. Plus, they have all kinds of access to government money. I know the actual UN building is considered international territory, as are the missions (each one is apparently considered national territory, despite the fact that they are located in and are property of the City). That doesn't mean that their cars are also international territory. I realize diplomats are supposed to have all sorts of immunities, but the fact that they live here must be considered, and as they are adults, or reasonable facsimiles thereof, they should show more respect for their host city. In any case, I'm sure this problem exists everywhere there are diplomats, especially in DC, and as always, the UN is singled out simply because it is the UN and it is everyone's favorite scapegoat. That's not to say that the City should let the tickets slide. Giuliani, in his day, was busy showing us just how big his dick was and saying "I'm not a mayor who is easily threatened," and if the UN wanted to leave because of parking tickets (just a stupid thing to even think), he could easily come up with other uses for the land. But Bloomberg is a lap dog who likes to run around with a big stick in his mouth, playing fetch with Washington and barking tough, so I'm anxious to see if he does anything at all, which he most probably will not unless Bush tells him to.

The UN, Marriage and Iraq - We are not upset enough

2007-01-18T10:25:00.000-05:00

The new UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, was in Washington over the past couple of days to meet with Bush. The SG asked for the US's support in the UN's peacekeeping operations. I promise to swallow 5 raw egg yolks while someone sticks flaming bamboo under my fingernails if that ever happens while Bush is in office. The NYT article says that the US is the biggest contributor to UN peacekeeping funds. If you ask around, most people, including both liberal and conservative media outlets, will say the US is the leading contributor to the UN in general, as well as its agencies. According to my father, who used to work as a Project Manager for the UN Pan American Health Organization, we need to think in terms of per capita contributions, and in that sense, the Nordic countries, Norway in particular, beat out the US by far. For one, Norway is one of the leading contributors to the UN Peacebuilding Fund, followed by Sweden and Denmark, while the US has yet to pledge anything at all, not even a paperclip. Let us also consider the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) fiasco a few years back, in which the US and newly elected Bush Co. decided to halt funding to the agency due to agency's family planning programs in China. Bush was convinced they were preaching abortion, when of course they were not, because it was absolutely not feasible to preach abortion in the countryside where people hardly have access to regular doctors. The US is almost always an obstacle to the UN's progress in so many ways, it is almost impossible to count. They didn't even want to form the Peacebuilding Commission (where I work now), even though my old boss, who was at the US mission to the UN when the Commission was formed, took full credit on behalf of the US for creating it.

There is an editorial in today's NYT (Times Select, so I can't link...sorry) about the way that some people "revere it too highly. They put it on a pedestal, or as Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins puts it, they regard marriage not as the foundation of adult life, but as the capstone." As for me, marriage is neither "the foundation of adult life", nor is it "the capstone". I know that marriage will not make or break me. I do plan on it, for now at least, because for me it is a fulfillment of one of my purposes, which is to give somebody unconditional love and support and to get it back from that person. I realize that I don't have to get married to do this, but it would be nice, and I'd like to have a proper family situation for my kids. But even with a husband, that is a huge gamble. Perhaps tradition influences me in this regard. But I've seen so many reasons NOT to get married: the first is my own parents. There is a huge difference between two people being the best of friends and admiring each other for and being a married couple. They don't necessarily translate. Sometimes it happens that before you marry someone, you get along great and laugh and have a great time, although he is grumpy most times and can be a bit of a bore. Then 20 years down the line, you are still married, and and you realize his problem got worse as he got older and now he is always grumpy and virtually lacks a pulse. Then you start to rationalize the union by saying, "but he's such a good man," while acknowledging that you are rotting inside from lack of activity and from having to take responsibility for a man that hesitates to do it for himself. She has to cater to his wants, but he doesn't have to and will not go out of his way for her. I also don't like the concept of having to hide the things you bought on your latest shopping spree because hubby will get mad. I'm not so into the "fearing the husband" thing. I agree that a couple needs to compromise in most regards including finances, but enough is enough. I don't want to have to "report" to anyone I don't work for. I've seen couples where one will by a house while the spouse is out of town and others where one has to be away from the spouse a certain amount of days during the week in order to tolerate being married to her. None of these are idyllic situations to me, so I understand the hunt will be long and arduous, and in the end, I may end up getting married at 65 or not at all. I think what bothers me more is how my family will react if I don't marry. I wouldn't have the time to be miserable about that, and I don't understand anyone who would, because there are so many other things with which to be concerned. But whatever happens, I'm not going to get all Charlotte-from-Sex-and-the-City about it and make my friends set me up and leave them 50 nasty messages on their answering machines when they do not fulfill their promise. But I always keep in mind that Charlotte ended up marrying a chubby, Jewish (she was Episcopalian) divorce lawyer who she even converted for, so that goes to show that the impossible can quickly become possible (even quicker if you exist in a sitcom).

There is another op-ed in the NYT by Bob Herbert (which I cannot link either), who is getting on my nerves lately. In it, he cites Martin Luther King Jr.'s assertion that “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." I absolutely agree with that. Herbert states that too many people are more concerned with getting MLK day off work than with the lessons he was trying to teach. I absolutely agree with that too. There are too many ignorant idiots running around trying to get holidays off work without understanding what those holidays mean. But the main theme of Herbert's column is that Americans are not outraged enough over Iraq and other issues, such as New Orleans. It is easy for those whose job it is to sit in front of the computer and knock out two weekly op-eds to criticize people for different things. It's easy for me, even though it is not my job, but at least I only criticize people who deserve it. I think there are many, especially in NYC, who would be outraged with Herbert. While it is true that there has not been as much protest over Iraq as there was over Vietnam, there has been considerable protest, in the streets, at home, on blogs and websites, in the news, even from the government itself. There was protesting against the Iraq war before the invasion/occupation even started. There was protesting against Bush the minute he usurped the presidency. There was protest about Bushco's lack of movement when Katrina happened and in its aftermath. It needs to be considered that we are living in different times and people have different mindsets. The government is different, and before the war even started it was widely known that any protest would fall on deaf ears and the government would go ahead with their plans anyway, just as they did even after most of their rationale was found to be a lie. Revolution is not so present in people's minds as it used to be, and maybe Herbert would have a point if he said that people, for the most part, are more resigned these days. But there's a lot of outrage to be witnessed, and I think Herbert is retreating into a world of his own lately. Plus, I don't think he's leaving his desk to do anything but go home at the end of the day.

From the midst of dust and drilling

2007-01-17T11:33:00.000-05:00

Today (and probably tomorrow as well), I have to work through dust, drilling, walkie talkies and steel beams dropped carelessly by UN construction guys, not to mention a lot of unnecessary grunts and belches, right in my ear. Not only that, but the guys seem to think that our desks are extensions of their offices and use the phones, have very loud conversations and leave their things on our desks. Why do I have to go through this? For two reasons that I've touched on already: Firstly, UN stinginess - They no longer want to pay overtime to their workers, meaning construction doesn't happen on the weekends or at night. It is done during the workday. At least the Professionals (I hate calling them that, because most of them are anything but professional, so they will heretofore be referred to as "bullshitters". I very humbly think that the people who continually have to clean up Professional messes are the REAL Professionals) have their doors to close. But the ones in our office are not doing that, perhaps in a show of solidarity, which is mighty nice of them. Second, it is the bullshitters who have not even come on board yet who have demanded complete offices. One guy who is technically a part of our office is holding onto his old room because "it is much bigger" than any office we could offer him on our floor, and he is at the Director level and should not have to cram himself into a tiny space, blah, blah, blah. Everywhere else I have worked, you just go in and sit wherever they tell you and only the BIG boss gets the nice digs, not the guy who is only sort of high up the totem pole. It is only at the UN that you can accept or reject a contract to work based solely on accommodations or lack thereof. Let us keep in mind that one office costs around $20,000 to build. So there are $40,000 being spent right next to me, and I have no part in it. At least these construction guys aren't showing their ass-cracks.

The news is out that Sen. Barack Obama has formed a presidential exploratory committee. Many think that this means he will definitely run, and those people are already making bets as to who will win the nomination: Barack or Hillary. Conservatives are already discussing which of them has the least experience. I think experience is valuable, but long-range, strategic planning, surrounding oneself with the necessary expertise and ideas, not to mention compassion and an excellent understanding of the principles on which this country was built coupled with the intention to keep those principles in tact are much more important than knowing "where the bodies are buried". I believe that a lot of people back in the day were saying the same things about JFK, that he was inexperienced, that he was riding on daddy's coat-tails (if they only knew what was to come!), etc. And he beat the crap out of Nixon and won anyway, and went down in American history as one of our best presidents, while Nixon went down in history as a criminal, Ford's pardon notwithstanding. Funny how it's always Republiconservatives who end up with bad reputations that last until after they die.

If Barack does run, I will be among the first to volunteer to work on his campaign. I don't care if I have to wake up early on a Saturday and lick stamps until my tongue turns blue. I've never felt so strongly about a candidate, and in such a positive, almost dreamy kind of way. Not even my hatred of Bush is so strong, although it would seem so because I am so loud about it. But remember, Shakespeare (and my dad) said "speak low, if you speak love." I think that's a good enough explanation.

Holidays

2007-01-16T13:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday (observed). I was summoned to work, as were the rest of the UN staff, because it is not considered a UN holiday. This is not a campaign to get the day off so I can sleep late. I just wanted to point out, in case you didn't hear me before, that the UN's problems are so deep-seated, they even extend to the schedule of holidays around these parts.

First of all, MLK, one of history's foremost leaders in promoting civil and human rights, is not honored. Not only did we not get the holiday, there were no activities, no presentations, no vigils, no nothing to commemorate the day, even though the UN consistently preaches civil and human rights. Needless to say (although I'm saying it now), these cannot be promoted in such a half-assed way. Let me give you an even more aggravating example of the UN's fault in this particular area: in my old office, the Director will not speak to the human rights advisor, because the advisor had the nerve to make some suggestions, and then, um, emphasize them, because the Director seemed a bit reluctant to implement the suggestions, or so I heard. Rather than take human rights into consideration, since one of the resolutions that mandates that office is a human rights resolution, the Director got his knickers in a bunch because the advisor had not shown enough respect. That's the other thing about the UN that may one day help to bring it down: the "professional" category staff (aka, those with a masters in bullshit) are so busy making sure they have windows in their offices, slaves to arrange their desks for them and that they never have to get their hands dirty, they almost forget that they actually have a job to do. Mo' money, mo' complaining. Cry me a river. As for the "support staff", we are relegated to dark cubicles where we do not have access to the fundamental human rights of quasi-fresh air and daylight. I know this is an omnipresent situation, and I keep trying to get the General Assembly to pass a resolution on that, but they just won't listen.

Back to the holiday issue....We are having a President's day this year. In past years, the Sundance channel has shown anti-Bush documentaries, which is a great way to commemorate the day. You know, showing what a president ought NOT to do. Despite this, why in hell do we celebrate a couple of dead American presidents and not MLK? Because whatever the US mission wants, it has to get, and they're not big on human rights and MLK either.

Eid is meant to mark the beginning and end of Ramadan. I can respect this, as they are days of religious significance, and I will welcome the day off so I can go to the DMV and wait all day to have my ID renewed (and a new photo taken, thank the Lord). In terms of religious holidays, why is it that we only have Catholic and Muslim holidays off? What about the Jewish high holidays? In the interest of equality among races, religions and creeds, another principle the UN injects into everything it does, or says it will do, we should at least rotate religions yearly. But no. Every year, we can count on the Eid's and Good Friday, or at least one Eid and a President's Day.

But there is one day out of the year I am so glad the UN does not consider a holiday: Columbus Day. And if you haven't read far back enough in my posts to know why I hate that day, I'd be more than happy to repeat myself. Why should I observe a holiday which falls around the time some Italian guy turned his back on his country and went to work for Spain made a right at the Canary Islands instead of a left and "discovered" an already populated island, thereby kicking off decades of mass murder and conquest? Like I always say, the conquest was the decimation of a culture by a group of heathens done for no other reason than that culture far surpassed their own. Oh, but they gave us the Spanish language, people say. How big of them. I would be just as happy speaking Nahuatl or Tzutujil Maya.

A Man Makes a Plan

2007-01-11T16:32:00.001-05:00

First of all, happy new year to you all! Hope your holidays/breaks from work were good. As for me, I mostly relaxed with the parents, got my hair done, ate 3 Christmas dinners and graduated from my mom's cooking school. And I realized that American Airlines suck, and if ever you are travelling from New York City to a domestic location, do not do it out of or into JFK. That place is a mess. Not only are there horrid delays, but once you do get to land, the plane has to tour the airport and over a highway to get to the gate, then you have to walk about a mile to get your luggage. I'm going back to the train thing. The plane is no longer the cheaper or faster option for travel to DC.

Last night, Bush made a little speech, in which he finally admitted that he was/is accountable for any mistake made in Iraq. Of course, he had no idea what it was he was taking the blame for, which pretty much cancelled out the whole thing. But the glory of his revelation was cut short when he unveiled his new plan for the war: send over 21,500 more troops. With what money? Ours, natch. What do you do when you make a wrong turn? Gun it, so that it will be even harder to find your way back. Eighty per cent of the violence in Iraq goes on in Baghdad, so says Bush. The solution is to secure Baghdad (which begs the question, what in the hell did we shell out all that money last time around for anyway?). And we'll be footing the bill for that too, in terms of both cash and humans.

But there's this new obstacle: the Democrats. Bush will have to try and get his plan past Rangel and Company in Ways and Means. I read a New York magazine article about him last night, and he doesn't seem like the forgiving pushover type to me. I think we should be in for a good fight.

NYC's Village Idiot

2006-12-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

He. He He.

Check this out. Those two remind me of my cats: all the fighting, swatting, hissing and scratching. And for what?

Toussaint insists that "every New Yorker should be furious with the MTA", for it was Kalikow who insisted that the contract business should go into arbitration, therefore wasting $2 mill in the past year. And you know who all paid for that. Rog, sweetie-darling, we are furious with the MTA. Always have been, always will be. We are also furious with the TWU, you in particular.

The object of today's game is to figure out which of the two, Kalikow or Toussaint, qualifies for the above-mentioned title.

Identify yourself

2006-12-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

With regard to the shootings by police officers (is it just me or have there been, like, three of them in as many weeks?) and this past weekend's stabbing of an off-duty officer at a diner in Williamsburg, news articles always say "it is unclear whether they identified themselves as police officers". Who the fuck cares if they identified themselves or not? They still shot 50 bullets at unarmed men, one of whom was getting married that day. Are people trying to say that if they did identify themselves as police, the whole case would be scrapped? Will the shootings be rendered less tragic if the shooters identified themselves? Of course not. Sounds like the splitting of hairs to me, buying some time with nonsense in the hopes that no one gets to the heart of the matter - white cops went into a black neighborhood and on "suspicion", shot into a car of unarmed men, just the same way white cops went into Soundview "looking for a suspect" and shot Amadou Diallo 41 times for pulling out his wallet.

On the 7 train this morning, I heard a guy telling his friend something along the lines of "that cop [in Williamsburg] deserved to be stabbed" in return for all the recent shootings by police. Somebody had to take the fall for all the crap his group has been dishing out lately, seems to be what he meant. A lot of people looked up from their papers, books, and/or iPods. Nobody uttered one word in disagreement, and a few people even nodded their heads in agreement. I suspect the reaction would have been much different had that been said on, say, the 6 train at Grand Central.

Ha! I'm so not alone on the tourist-contempt thing!

2006-12-15T11:18:00.000-05:00

Hey, here's an article from the New York Times on tourist season. It was in times select, so I can't link it, but I've pasted it here. Enjoy and happy holidays!

Unfortunately, the T-shirt that came closest to what we wanted was hopelessly obscene. We dropped in on a dozen souvenir shops, and not one carried a shirt that we had seen some years ago. It summed up our sentiments in this season when Midtown streets are so crowded that you can barely move.

“Welcome to New York,” it said. “Now go home.”

Really, is it asking too much to have our city back?

Oh, sure, this is not a new lament. And yes, out-of-towners pump economic juice into a city that produces precious little these days other than Goldman Sachs bankers and traders with year-end bonuses that amount to double the gross domestic product of Tajikistan. We know how much New York needs tourists.

NYC & Company, the city’s tourism marketer, estimates that the number of visitors this year will exceed 44 million, including more than 7 million foreigners. That would be a 20-percent increase from 2002, the jittery first post-9/11 year.

Visitors, bless their open wallets, are spending more than ever, thanks perhaps to the incredible shrinking dollar vis-à-vis the euro and British pound. They shelled out $22.8 billion last year, or 62 percent more than in 2002, NYC & Company says.

Thank you, visitors.

But now can’t you go home, some of you anyway?

It shouldn’t take a reasonably fit fellow 10 minutes to walk from 50th Street to 45th Street in the theater district. But the crowds were so impenetrably thick on a recent Saturday at matinee time that the best one could do was shuffle along in frustration.

Is it fair to be forced, in one’s own city, to walk in the gutter because the crush on the sidewalk is too great? Must New Yorkers repeatedly endure the annoyance of not getting to an appointment on time because the tourists in front of them insist on walking — no, make that ambling — five abreast?

The mayor delivered a fine speech this week about the challenges awaiting a city whose population over the next 25 years is expected to grow by about a million, to more than nine million overall. Among other things, he said, mass transit must expand so that “congestion doesn’t bring our economy grinding to a halt.”

He was talking about the year 2030. Never mind that. Those of us who live and work here are grinding to a halt on the streets right now. And the city’s marketers are not content with 44 million visitors. They want to beef up the number to 50 million within a few years.
Gutter, here we come.

In fairness, most visitors seem like perfectly nice people, even if they sometimes do odd things. This goes beyond their non-New York tendency to stand dutifully at the corner waiting for the light to change.

They also — a startlingly large number of them — stand in long lines to get into Broadway shows for which they already have assigned seats. This phenomenon is conspicuous at tourist-dependent shows like “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Tarzan” and “Les Misérables.” Tickets in hand, the out-of-towners start forming tidy lines 45 minutes or more before the curtain goes up, as if they were at a movie theater with its policy of first come first served.

It is a baffling phenomenon.

“We saw others doing it, and we just joined them,” a middle-aged woman said as she waited with her teenage daughter outside the Broadhurst Theater to see “Les Miz.” The daughter added, “It’s part of the experience, I guess.”

I GUESS. No New Yorker would think so, though. Philip S. Birsh, the president and publisher of Playbill, chalked it up to these visitors’ being “a Disney World crew.” And “if you’re a Disney World person,” he said, “you’re in some way trained to stand on line.”

At least there is no harm in being sheepishly sheeplike. The same cannot be said of another type of visitor: young Europeans who come here for the sole purpose of spraying billowing clouds of graffiti on New York subway cars. “Guten-taggers,” The Daily News cleverly labeled them this week.

How serious is the problem? It’s not clear. New York City Transit says that defiled trains never make it out of the yards, so they are not an eyesore for the riding public.

Still, have we reached the point where we are outsourcing our graffiti?

Too bad we couldn’t find that T-shirt. It would have been nice to tell the Guten-taggers: Willkommen in New York. Jetzt verschwinden Sie wieder nach Hause.

In other words, welcome to New York — now go home. For that matter, you graffiti vandals can forget about the Willkommen.

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us

2006-12-14T10:07:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg made a speech recently challenging New Yorkers to envision what kind of city we want for the future. His office has set up a website where NYers can read about ideas and plans and give suggestions. You know that this Mariposa has already weighed in, especially after my hour commute from Woodside to Midtown on the 7, a journey which usually takes 1/2 an hour, this morning. I like the way the suggestion "box", if y'all will, was phrased: what would you change and what would you like to see stay the same? My change was: foster a culture of responsibility, because no plan for reform can be carried out when people/politicians who are supposed to work for the City keep "passing the buck". Sure, that happens at the UN all the time, that's why the place is a hotbed for trouble, scandal and failure as well as success, and a great case-study is my old office. For all my whining about it, I think I forgot to mention that the larger reason why it is such a fucked up place is because most of those people have been allowed to make a career out of doing nothing, and that goes from the bottom all the way to the top, including the Director and his "senior" staff. In any case, what I wanted to see stay the same was the "neighborhood" sort of vibe that most NYers give off, and their/our ability to laugh in the face of ever-rising levels of bullshit (and tourists). As for me, now that the only crap I have to put up with is on the trains and the sidewalks, I am a much happier person, and although I had to let 4-5 crowded 7 trains go by before I could squeeze onto one, I LAUGHED. Even when the station attendant guy made the announcement "please avoid over-crowding" to a platform chock full of people waiting, just like me, to smoosh onto a train, I laughed it off. What a relief it is, too, to know that my general outlook and disposition was not completely altered by my old office. I finally feel like myself again.

When I did manage to get on a train, I started talking to this lady who worked for the City in the Department of Health (or whatever the official name is). She was an older lady, from the days when people still took responsibility for themselves and their work, did their best and knew that if they didn't, they would get kicked to the curb. I mentioned to her that I hoped that Spitzer would do a better job of taking care of the City, that maybe he would get rid of Kalikow and the rest of Pataki's appointees who do nothing constructive, and that maybe he would give us more money. See, in my broke-ass, credit card debt world, I very naively think that throwing money at a problem will make it go away, and it does help. But I'm quickly learning that some problems require many more elements and resources to fix. The lady asked me, "Do you really think that a wad of cash will fix things? Please! People need to take more responsibility for their actions, is what needs to happen. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. People have got to make more noise. Write letters and complain loudly." Ah, a woman after my own heart. If there's one thing I know how to do is belt out my complaints to anyone who'll listen. The lady went on to mention a college professor whose class was full of students who, let's just say, were not exactly prepared to do the work. "You all are illiterate!" the professor said to his students. At first, the students rebelled, but as they realized that he only spoke the truth, they started trying harder and by the end of the year, when it came time for term papers, everyone wrote a great one. This is similar to what Frank McCourt talks about in his most recent book "Teacher Man". The hardest part of being a teacher is getting the kids to listen, to get past their social status and other bullshit and into the learning mindset. Sometimes this requires a bit of tough love. So I propose that NYers give more tough love to the City, its various corporizations and its government. What a lot of NYers don't know is that when they spend money at Bergdorf's or K-Mart, they inadvertently tell the City that everything is fine by pumping more money into the economy. This includes me, and that would be why I do most of my non-urgent (clothes and shoes, etc) shopping when I go see my parents in DC/Virginia. The fact that Virginia has a 5% sales tax helps too, and I know most of that revenue is going to the state and not the tourists. Another problem that the city has is a gross mis-management of revenue. Why is that the more taxes we pay, the worse infrastructure gets? And while we're at it, why are people like Alan Hevesi allowed to continue in their posts? (there's an article in this week's NY magazine, entitled "the Penitent", with the subtitle "Alan Hevesi is Really Sorry", wherein he insists that he just "overlooked" paying the State back for the personal car service. No, Alan, what you did was steal and hope no one would notice. Another thing you should be sorry for is that tacky decor lurking in your house).

From what I read in New York magazine and NYC's tabloidy newspapers, on my own blog and on others, people complain a lot on paper, but that doesn't go anywhere and doesn't fix anything. The trick is turning the anger into action. Case in point: a couple of years ago, I got really tired of the fact that for every Manhattan-bound 7 train during the morning rush, about 3,4 or even 5 empty Flushing-bound trains would go by. I complained to the MTA everyday for a week (I know I wasn't the only one, either), and for the next two months, the MTA kept the Manhattan-bound trains coming and it was smooth sailing. But then it stopped. So the answer is to keep at it until they get so tired of hearing our mouths that they do what we want. Remember "The Shawshank Redemption"? Andy kept writing letters requesting old books for the prison library, and after a few years of one letter a week, he got his books along with a note asking him to stop writing letters. He said, "Now I'll write two letters a week." Perseverance, y'all. Learn it, live it, love it.

After talking to the health-department lady, I got to thinking: the UN is most definitely fighting an uphill battle on the "fostering a culture of responsibility" goal. But some of the UN's obstacles to achieving that goal come from the inside. There's only a handful of us, at all levels, who actually try to put out good work and take responsibility for our failures as well as our successes. The other obstacles are the Member states, most of whom are like the US and like to bark orders but are not very forthcoming when the time comes for concensus on solving a problem (Bolton was not alone on that one, and his critics should take a look at themselves in the mirror). That's part of what happened in Rwanda and most recently, in the Sudan, and a large part of the reason the UN is so critiqued. To the UN's detractors, I say, you try getting 192 countries to come to a agreement. The UN is just a forum for these folks and whatever happens in the Security Council, in the General Assembly and in their countless debates is totally on them. UN staff can only work with what they give us. Unfortunately, most governments have the same problem arriving at a concensus, externally as well as internally. Everyone has different interests and they all act accordingly. But even bigger than that is the problem of coming up with new solutions and procedures that benefit everyone and that we can all agree on. But there's an obstacle to that too: the voters, and those who don't bother voting but mouth off about government whenever they get the chance, like my own mami (and I'm still trying to school her on that).

So let's take a lesson from the civil rights and anti-war movements of the '50's and '60's. Boycott, protest, whatever. By any means necessary. Keep at it. It may take years to see what you want actually happen, but persevere anyway, if only in the hopes of really pissing off those who do you wrong.

Pinochet dies

2006-12-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

Augusto Pinochet died over the weekend. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing, but I will leave that up to God. I know that He can punish people far better than any on earth ever could. My joy is that there is one less devil here on earth.

Stuff of Note

2006-12-06T14:36:00.000-05:00

Have a look-see at this post about the Clootie Well at Munlochy in the highlands of Scotland. I love that name, and story of the Clootie Well is quite interesting. I keep wanting to call it the "Pootie Tang".

Also have a look at this blog. It's by a taxi driver in UK. I liked the English taxis and the drivers. The cabs are jet black and really elegant-looking, and it was a joy to strike up conversations with the drivers. Plus, I loved, loved, loved the accents, no patronizing intended. Soon, when the Dems are back in office and the dollar is stronger, I will go back to UK for sure, and this time, I'll go to St. Ives and Yorkshire and back to Wales and all the places I wanted to go to but couldn't because I couldn't afford to leave the London center city limits, not even on the Tube. Right now, I couldn't even afford a bed at the Y in central London. So for now, Mr. English Taxi Driver Man, I will live vicariously through you, if you don't mind.

I also wanted to let you know why I have been posting randomness 2 and 3 times a day lately (OK, yesterday...the point here being that I've been posting more than before). My new job, so far, is A LOT less busy. I'm sure things will be different on down the line (L., my boss' personal assistant, says that I should go ahead and put my feet up now because I may never be able to do it again, then she chuckles knowingly....), but for now, I'm actually feeling sort of purposeless here in my corner of the room. It's been a bit of a shock to the system, really, but this is not a complaint, merely an observation. Thankfully, however, I have stopped hearing the voices of some of my former co-workers barking at me that seemed to be travelling on the river wind outside my window. This morning, I actually had a bit of a nightmare about the old place, though: I was dozing at about 6:30 am and awoke with a start. My old director walked into my new office and told me that something went wrong with my contract and I had to go back to the old office. I protested quite loudly, but no one was around to hear me scream, as he dragged me back up the street to the Chrysler building by my pony-tail, with me kicking and screaming the whole way. When I got there, my old supervisor says to me, with a wide, shit-eating grin (but really I was the one eating the shit) and wringing his hands greedily, "Sabbah el Kheer!" (good morning in Arabic).

I think I shed a tear, said "Oh, God, Jesus, no!", then a Hail Mary, issued the bendición to myself, and went back to sleep.

Assassins need love too

2006-12-05T16:44:00.000-05:00

When I first started this blog in 2004, Chile's former despot, Augusto Pinochet was finally being brought to justice for his crimes against humanity, specifically, Operation: Condor, a US backed "plan" to oust Salvador Allende, Chile's socialist leader in 1973, in which Pinochet wiped out his opposition, which included thousands of leftist students and civilians as well. But the poor old man got "sick" and was sent home to his country, and there he recovers, with a mix of supporters and opponents camping out waving flags and being patriotic and others who are denouncing him, remembering those he killed and "disappeared". Note, however, his supporters are mainly members of the upper-class, accompanied by people too young to remember Pinochet's murderous campaign, which means they were told that Pinochet is some hero and he should be honored as such. That to me cuts out half his support, for if those kids got a clue, Pinochet would be left with a bunch of upper-crusty abuelas.

I do understand the people who insist Pinochet rescued Chile from Allende, who, they say, had put the country in total disarray. But I have a lot of trouble believing that the only way the dictator could have put the country back in line was to torture and asassinate his opposition. Just look at Argentina: they had a "Dirty War" as well, and the economy is still crap and the government lives off people's pensions. I don't understand people who can look the other way and pledge undying support to someone who, directly or indirectly (for some, ahem, can kill indirectly), kills and tortures tens of thousands to exercise power that is really just gained by default.

Foaming at the mouth gets you nowhere

2006-12-05T12:31:00.002-05:00

John Bolton, the mad dog Bush unleashed on the UN based on a technicality back in '05, resigned, effective at the end of the month. Bush reluctantly accepted his resignation, conceding that Bolton would never be confirmed by the new Senate (not that the old one confirmed him, either), and he and his party will die a slow death, ending, with all hope, in a resounding defeat in 2008. Like I said, when the going gets tough, Cons get to stepping. And be sure to check out the caption under that awful picture with the NYT article. That's good for a hearty laugh.

Bolty's Security Council colleagues have given him mixed reviews, praising him for his strong stance against North Korea but wishing he'd play better with others. Bossman Annan's chief of staff, who in a speech accused the US of using the UN by "stealth", triggering Bolty to demand a public apology, which he never got, by the by, has said "no comment", but the grin on his face as he said it was of course quite telling. There has been some rejoicing around these parts, some of it by me, and I think most people believe that if Bolton had come to the UN under different circumstances, things may have turned out differently. That is to say that many at the UN knew well that Bush was not at all interested in diplomacy, and for him to have sent us Bolton was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Consequently, the US has lost some power around here. Just look at what happened with the Security Council vote. Most countries who voted Venezuela and/or against Guatemala did it for many reasons, but among them was pissing off the Americans. Anyway, I think I will take a walk on down to the conference room floor and keep an ear out. Oh, I forgot to mention.....that Security Council seat belongs to Guatemala. If y'all hear about Panama in that seat, pay no mind. We just very graciously lent it to our hermanos centroamericanos.

Robert Gates, Bush's nomination for Rummy's replacement, said, at his confirmation hearing, that the US is not winning the war in Iraq. We all know this, but it is nice to hear when someone on the inside speaks the truth for a change, and at least the comment might stop Bush from running around in flight suits talking about "mission accomplished" (I can't possibly forget that one). The crap news is that he apparently does not intend to reduce troops over there, but he might pull a fast one once he is in the Pentagon. One never knows with politicians.

Hello Old Friend

2006-12-04T21:55:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to say happy birthday to James Avatar. Hope you are doing well and have put your excellent talents to excellent use.

If it weren't for you, my love, I wouldn't know the difference between good and bad.

“Aún hay más"

2006-12-04T16:51:00.000-05:00

I know I am a little late on this one, as it came out in the New York Times last week.

I just wanted to remember Raul Velasco, host of the Mexican TV show, Siempre en Domingo, Latin America's answer to the Ed Sullivan Show. He died last sunday, 26 November, of complications from hepatitis and a liver transplant. The show was on the air from 1969-1998.

I watched the show religiously whenever I was in Guatemala, mostly because there were only 4 channels to choose from P. C. (that's Pre-Cable). Domingo's heyday (for me anyway) was back in the late seventies/early eighties when music was still about music, before silicona became a prerequisite for talent, and me and my cousin particularly loved Jose Luis "El Puma" Rodriguez and the lovely Luis Miguel. I miss the mariachis, huge 20 piece bands that would take the stage and throw down, all in their black suits, vaquero boots and huge, black sombreros (above are pictures of the mariachi band that played my treintañera party back in March. not the same, but you get the idea).

While we're in this headspace, I want to give special shout-outs to the telenovelas Quinceañera ( I still know the theme song by heart) and La Fiera, and of course, Chespirito/Chavo del Ocho/Chapulin Colorado, aka, That Spanish Bee Guy.

If you ask nicely, I can sing you some of the commercials from back in the day.

So what exactly are they trying to say?

2006-12-01T11:57:00.000-05:00

An article in today's NY Magazine Intelligencer about yesterday's hike in taxi fares includes various statistics on cabbies' take-home pay and lack of health insurance. I'm not sure if this is supposed to appeal to whatever sympathetic side New Yorkers have left within themselves. First of all, if the stat regarding cabbies' take-home pay is true, they make about $3500 a month now with this increase, which is still only a dream to most people, some of whom are day-care center workers, hospital workers, school teachers and those who care for the elderly. Am I supposed to feel so sorry for cabbies that I would want to hand them at least $3 more dollars a ride, not including the tip they loudly demand, shitty attitude or not? Here's another spot where the hard-ass bitch in me takes over and replies, hell no.

People who do much more important work that actually contributes positively to the community are paid much less than men and women who sit in cabs all day and drive all over the city, blaming riders for the fact that they have such horrible lots in life and for the fact that their asses hurt with the horrible attitudes they almost always display. I've lived in New York for 8 years (not incuding college) and I have met approximately three cabbies who did not piss and moan and bitch the whole ride. And then, when they are handed the tips that are commensurate with the uncomfortable ride they have given us, they have the nerve to protest, quite rudely and loudly, and demand a larger tip. Consequently, they get the door slammed in their faces, if they are dealing with me. But I'm sure a lot of people are with me on this one. In sum, there is absolutely no change in service. Most cabbies are still as rude as they were before the hike, they all still mysteriously go off duty at the same time, which just happens to be rush hour, and they will still kick you to the curb if you have the audacity to want to go somewhere they don't feel like going. So why must I pay more for this? It's just another case of someone trying to get more for nothing, much like the MTA and other corporizations, and I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about this problem except to stop taking cabs unless I am doing the airport thing. I think a lot of people will do the same as me.

Greetings, My Christian Brethren

2006-11-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

I got an email a few days ago from a gentleman representing a group of Christian bloggers. He had read my blog and somehow came to the conclusion that he would invite me to join his set. Of course, I was thankful for the invitation, but also curious as to what exactly he had read that made him think I was "Christian" in the "everyone must accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour" kind of way. I mean no offense, but when I think of a Christian, I think of that movie "Saved!", in which Hilary Faye, the ultra-Christian girl, hurls a Bible at a perceived heretic's back and shouts "I am full of Christ's love!!"

I do pray: if I need help or extra strength to keep myself sane, if I, my mom or dad or anyone I know are sick or in danger, you know, the usual. Sometimes these go with appeals to St. Jude, patron saint of impossible causes. For example, when I was trying to get paroled from my last office, I prayed and prayed, acknowledging of course that God would not put me in a situation He knows I can't handle. And then it happened, I was lifted out of that seventh circle of doom, and I spent the next few weeks randomly looking up at the heavens and giving thanks. I went to Catholic school for four years (but more for the fact that it was private and not so much for the parochial aspect of it), I've done time at several masses, and I've gone through First Communion and Confirmation. I've been known to wear a gold cross on a chain around my neck as well as a medal of the Virgin Mary. But I wear them more because they are symbols of protection given to me by my mother, who I really believe to be my guardian angel on earth. When I was in the hospital, close to death, my dad went to the shrine nearby to pray to the Virgin to help me, which she did, and with a quickness. We're all still thanking her for that, 20 years later.

So we are a religious family. But we tend to shun organized religion and what it teaches us, because we don't believe all of the rhetoric and dogma. Furthermore, some of it doesn't make any sense. And let me go even further and say that in my opinion, the Bible is a book written by men who insist it is the word of God, as if God said unto them "can you take dictation?" and the apostles all whipped out their old-school steno tablets and set to work. Don't get me wrong, the Bible does have a lot of good teachings in it, and for the most part, it encourages love and peace. But what doesn't make sense to me is, if God is such a benevolent and peaceful being, how then could He inspire such hatred in the world? Fanatical Muslims say that it is Allah and the prophet Mohammed who have ordered intifadahs and jihads all over the world against infidels. Christians said it was God who told them to ride off to Jerusalem to convert the Muslims during the Crusades. The Catholic kings of Spain insisted it was God who had them use torture to convert the Jews and Moors in the south of Spain to Catholicism. And now, it is God who says homosexuality is unnatural and shameful and we should pity gays and try to rid them of their "disease", as that is the Christian thing to do. Perhaps you can all see how none of this makes any sense, and even people who claim to be Christian or Muslim or Jewish misinterpret "what God said" in their respective Good Books. As for me, I'm sticking to the whole God as a benevolent and peaceful being idea, just to avoid confusion. So please, I don't want any titles or classifications being thrown my way.

Thank you.

Responsibility

2006-11-28T14:14:00.000-05:00

I just read an op-ed in the New York Times (sorry, can't attach it) by Bob Herbert, in which he suggested that Americans should feel more responsibility and guilt for the war in Iraq, since America is the offending party. I usually like Herbert a lot, even though he is just a tad bit whiny, but he was way off the mark with this one.

I have no problem announcing that I feel absolutely no responsibility or guilt for the war in Iraq. There is no reason for me to feel responsible for a war which was started by a misguided coward that I didn't vote for and did not elect. If anyone should feel guilty, its the idiots who voted for Bush, Bush himself, and well as those who profit, directly or indirectly, from the war (and that last part takes care of the rest of the government). What I do feel is great sadness for the innocent Iraqi civilians (not the militants, to be clear), first and foremost: they did not elect Saddam, and therefore should not have to suffer invasion, occupation and crimes being committed against them in the name of deposing him and bringing Iraq to "democracy", which to the army apparently means the freedom to rape and murder a 14-year old Iraqi girl and kill her family. I feel immense pity for the soldiers who choose to go over there when they have no real idea what they are supporting, what they are fighting for or what they are doing and for the ones who "stress out" so much that they murder innocent people. I'm sorry that some of those soldiers had to come back from the war without limbs or otherwise injured so that they could realize the unnecessary danger Bush put them in. But guilt? Sorry, no.

I think the real tragedy is that not only is Iraq being destroyed, but that the government is slowly chipping away at all that which America is supposed to be made of. Responsibility for something that proves to be a mistake lies with the person who made that mistake and his enablers. Just because Americans are out in full force doing their holiday shopping, just like every year, does not mean they should be ashamed of themselves. On the contrary, for they are out there ensuring a wonderful holiday for themselves and their families. If anyone should have felt ashamed when they were shopping, it was definitely Condi, who was out buying Ferragamo shoes when the levees broke in New Orleans last year.

To improve on the government's lack of a sense of responsibility towards anything, Representative Charles Rangel has suggested that the draft be reinstated, so that government officials and the rich can be assured that their sons and daughters are in the same danger of being whisked off to war as the sons and daughters of those who are less financially fortunate. On first impact, the draft sounds like some awful and greedy policy, and there is always the possibility that, if the draft is reinstated, the rich will be able to buy themselves out of it anyway. But I can't deny that the draft definitely has an equalizing power to it, and I'm all for that.

Rogue Waves

2006-11-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

So that I am not accused of rambling without showing the way to the light at the end of the tunnel, let me just sum up my day so far by giving you a philosophical approach to the concept of Rogue waves.

No, rogue waves are not pieces of ocean targeted by Bush for possible invasion. They are large, very unexpected waves, like tidal waves, that occur many miles offshore for no scientific reason. That is, no seismic or any other type of conventional activity can be detected as a possible reason for the wave. There are many theories as to why these occur, such as shifting ocean currents or gases that bubble up from the bottom of the sea.

So, a boat goes sailing along the ocean, say, about 300 miles off the southern coast of South Africa, en route to New York. Let's say this boat is carrying plane tickets to Kuwait and daily subsistence allowances for 6 people who just happen to be in positions to rid the world of transnational crime. As these are traditionally difficult waters to navigate, for this is the region where the Atlantic meets the Indian ocean, some hardships are certainly expected. The boat sails along towards its destination, the crew determined to deliver its precious cargo. Then, all of a sudden, a huge wave, quickly gathering force, comes rolling towards this poor, doomed little boat. Since it is at sea and the wave is quite long, the boat cannot make a sudden change in its course to save itself nor will it simply be tossed onto shore by the wave. As the wave approaches with a vengeance, the crew of the boat have no choice but to prepare for death lest a miracle happen wherein they are beamed safely to shore, or into another profession, by the hand of God Himself.

It could be argued that if this little boat had not plunged into difficult waters, it would not have been hit by the rogue wave and the crew would continue to live in a comparative happy-land where no risks would ever be taken, no challenges would ever be met and no karma points earned, in a perpetual, circular journey towards an ever-increasing paycheck. But the crew, just for getting on that little boat and because of the determination with which they worked to rise to the challenge, are to be rewarded in the heavens. The more shit they had to wade through (no pun intended), the greater the personal rewards. This be my thinking.

There is hope for the world

2006-11-08T13:46:00.000-05:00

By now most of you know that the Democrats have taken over the House and have made strong gains in the Senate. True to form, when the going gets tough, the Cons get going...right out the door. Let's all say a very hearty "LATER!!!!" to Rumsfeld. With luck and God's will, the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who led the CIA under Bush the Elder, will be less of a problem and will handle Iraq, for one thing, a little better and with more sensibility than Rummy.

Friends...How Many of Us Have Them?

2006-11-01T14:21:00.000-05:00

This post will be an ode of sorts to my old friend J, the person with whom I broke up on Friday. All the things I never said because I wanted to be nice and a good friend, since I did at many times enjoy her company, will now be said. If she will still read this blog, I cannot say for sure, but if she does and does not like what I have to say, tough titties.

First, let me relate to you the straw that broke the camel's back (the camel would be me in this scenario): Friday morning, I received an email from Miss J telling me that her parents were in town and did I want to have brunch on Sunday. Understand that this email was sent after three months of tense relations between us during which J. fired off the occasional message to see how I was doing and I replied and it was all very cordial/terse. See, she got herself a man back in February/March, T., for which I was happy because she really needed and deserved someone special. I had started to notice that we hung out less than before, and when we did, T. was coincidentally out of town. But when I invited her to a SummerStage event in August, and after saying yes, J. then decided to go to a museum with T. instead, I saw that we weren't hanging out because she spent all her weekends with him even though she often saw him during the week too, which to be fair, she told me outright. But see, he was, according to her, "nice", and I am, I know now, very mean chopped liver. A case of have boyfriend will leave girl(s) behind. Fair enough. Far be it from me to get in the way of destiny and love. So I stayed away thinking that when she was ready to see this friend again she would email or call and, well, we'd cross that bridge when we got to it.

Fast forward to Friday's email. I replied that my mom would be in town too and that we had plans for Sunday. J. replied that she had "given up" on trying to hang out with me because she thought I should take "a more problem-solving approach" to my life. She was referring to my bitching about my job, and other things when they weren't going right, and her perceived notion that I did not do anything about any of it. Note here that she says this to me about a week or so after I announced to her that I had secured a new job, which apparently went in one ear and quickly out the other. I will be the first to admit that, yes, I bitch and moan my fair share and beyond, but I certainly am not one to do nothing to solve the problem. Besides, if we did not bitch, why then were blogs invented? But this was definitely the comment that made my jaw drop: she said that she felt that her "only" job as my friend was to listen to me, and that any advice she would have offered would have made me mad, as if I were this beast who would turn even more beastly if she said something I didn't like. This made me feel like the most horrible person on earth, and I don't think I have resented any commentary more in my life. Honestly, if she were in front of me, I might have clocked her. Come to think of it, if she were in front of me, she wouldn't have said anything at all, and therein lies the problem. First of all, and I know she knew this even though she could really be annoyingly clueless at times, I listened to her a lot, too, even about things that were maddening to me, and for the record, she has one or two issues in her life that she never did anything about either. My reply: "I hope that, in the future, you will be more understanding of the fact that not everyone chooses to swallow bullshit and internalize everything," or something along those lines. I did not mention the fact that among the many things included in the job description of a friend is to LISTEN, in sickness and in health, for fuck's sake, and to try not to give unsolicited advice and just be a shoulder to cry on. That would just be spoon-feeding J. something that she should already know, and I already spoon-feed for a living. I concluded my response by saying that us not hanging out would prove to be a relief to us both, and I meant that with all my heart. Let me ask you, my lovely readers: have you ever known someone who inadvertently brought out the worst in you? Well, this was the case for me. J. made me want to pick on her like a schoolyard bully and I hated that I felt that way and that I might make her feel badly about herself in any way. I probably might have at some point, and for that I deeply apologize. Actually, I should have said this to her, but oh well.

Her pitiful reply: her parents had not raised her to be emotional. No shit. She was strangely unemotional, a little cold, even. I think at least 6 months passed before she would allow me to give her a friendly hug. Last October, my mom and I had dinner with her and her dad. I thought her dad was wonderful and extremely wise, and at hello and goodbye, he seemed very warm and offered a hug and kiss. Anyway, my mom mentioned to me that when she went to give J. a hug and kiss goodbye, J. tensed up and made this face of "get the hell away from me", which offends me even now, as I am fiercely protective of my mother and do not appreciate anyone making her feel awkward, not even my father or stepfather.

In any case, it's over. Neither I nor J. will have to do anymore play-acting. And no, I did not spend my weekend moping around the house singing Michael Jackson's "She's Out of My Life" or anything like that. I did talk to the lovely S., my trainer at the gym, and since I was in self-doubt mode (and PMSing on top of everything), I asked him if he thought I was pessimistic. I thought that he would know given that we've been "together" for three months now, he has seen me at my worst, and often tells me he loves me ( as a friend of course. Otherwise we'd already be married and waiting on beautiful Guatenigerian babies.) He said that, given what I have been through in my life, he thought I was pretty damn positive. My mother said the same thing, and she is always devastatingly honest with me. A REAL friend. Even my friends at work have always thanked me for bringing positive vibes into our awful office. I can only conclude that J. probably sensed that I wanted to pick on her, that I never really felt that wonderful about our friendship, so I guess things just ran their course. I regret that I spent so long carrying it on, and that I wasted my time as well as hers. I would love to say "no hard feelings", but that would be a lie, unfortunately.

By the by, the office party went OK. Me and the Russian started out by taking a few shots of Stoli before the speeches, so I was nice and warm when the Director started up. He had some very kind things to say about me, and added "Let this sad occasion serve as a lesson to all of you on how not to let excellent people go." Too bad only two of the people who needed to hear that were in attendance. I really do regret that my departure leaves some of my favorite colleagues in a little bit of a pickle, but all of them understand why I need to go and support me in my decision. I made my own little speech: "It is impossible for me to sum up almost 5 years in one tiny speech, but I want to thank you all for the good times as well as the bad, because it is the bad times that show us who our friends and supporters really are, and make us appreciate the good times even more."

Editor's Note - In response to a comment left by anonymous: This post was not directed to anyone in particular and was meant only to tell the story. However, the subject of the posting did read the post and actually replied to Mariposa's personal email. Please refer to the last line of the fifth paragraph. This still stands. Mariposa is not too self-righteous to admit that she will be holding a grudge in this particular case.

Because in Every City, There's Fools to Pity

2006-10-18T16:05:00.000-04:00

I just read an interesting article in the NY Times about a program called "Operation: Refusal". In response to black men's complaints about being discriminated against when trying to hail a cab, the City has come up with this plan, in which undercover cops of color go out and try to hail cabs to see how many cabbies are refusing fares based on race. It's about time they do this. So far, there is a very good compliance rate, as this article will tell you, and several folks have been very happily surprised. But really, the fact that people still equate black men with bodily harm and/or murder says a lot about this society. We have not progressed that much at all, and New York is not as advanced as people think it is. It is really just another city run by money-hungry heathens, and in that way, it is very similar to Washington, DC, so theoretically, I should feel right at home.

Now, if only they could make some sort of rule so cabs would go into Queens at rush hour, considering that most of them are on their way home to Queens. The last time my mom was in town, she came to meet me at my office in the Chrysler Building, and since she can't walk for a long time or climb and descend stairs so well, we decided to get a cab home. Nightmare. After the 6th cabbie refused to go to queens, even though it was the end of his workday and he was going in the direction of the 59th street bridge, so he said, I kicked his hubcap right off his car. The guy didn't even stop or make any obscene gestures. I don't think he even noticed, but I still have that hubcap in my living room, and I keep it as a talisman of sorts. Since I got it, I haven't had any trouble with cabs. Another secret is to open the cab door when it stops for you, plant yourself inside, shut the door, let the cabbie drive for 1/2 a block or so, and then say you want to go to Queens or Brooklyn or wherever it is. When he threatens to throw you out, remind him of the little "Taxi Riders Bill of Rights posted behind his seat, grab your cell phone and threaten to dial 311 or whatever. That puts them in line real quick. Knowing curse words in Arabic and Urdu helps too. I really should thank my colleagues for that. I'll miss them.....Why?

BECAUSE I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still at the UN, but not in this office, so that's great. It is also a promotion to the next "salary grade", so I'm excited. Oh yeah and I'm excited for the new challenges and whatnot.....Actually, let me edit my previous statement: I'll miss most of them. The other ones, of whom you can probably guess, can eat me. The bosses are scrambling to find my replacements (plural because I do two jobs for the price of half of one, which you also may already know), and they have chosen a candidate, but she refused, and the next candidate refused as well, so now they are on to the third candidate, and I hope that karma bites them in the collective ass and number three refuses too. If they had acted right, this office wouldn't have such a horrible reputation at the UN as a bunch of troublemakers, which the bosses most certainly are, and they would have my replacements and I would be sitting in my new office. Which brings me to the downside, albeit a very small one in comparison: they're not letting me go to my new office until 27 November. Mr. R, the Director, asked me when I wanted to go. I said that I would like to get to the new office on 1 November so I could get settled there before the holidays, and Mr. R. was just about to authorize this, when Mr. S., like a little yipe-yipe dog, the kind that tries to jump on you when you get home because it craves attention, rushes into the room and says "No, no, you can't leave until we get a replacement and then you have to train her," yadda, yadda, yadda. Then I said "Well you know you can't keep me here indefinitely, as I'm sure you want to. You have until 1 December." So they compromised to 27 November, and of course I say "compromise" with a heavy dose of sarcasm. They did compromise, but on their terms, which is not a compromise at all, and you know I pointed this out to them both. Then Mr. S. left the room, and Mr. R. asked me why I was leaving. Let's just say that I was perfectly honest with him. As for me, this month I have left will be the easiest time I ever did, you know, like when the prisoner finds out he will be released from jail soon. The downfall of this office will be Mr. R., though, and the poor soul either doesn't know or doesn't care. He knows all the unsavory crap that's going on here, through the various eyes and ears that he puts out himself, but he doesn't do anything about anything. Like that witch Ireland? He knows very well that she is constantly degrading people, taking money out of people's paychecks for travel that they should be reimbursed for and then refusing to authorize the reimbursement, and doing other, bitchy, underhanded things. She's accusing people in the office of fraud for God's sake, without any hard evidence. But he does nothing. So anything that is or will go wrong here is most certainly his own fault. But I am out of here, and thank God I will not be associated with this dying fish anymore.

PS - I am loving Mr. T's new show, "I Pity the Fool", and his slogan: "Because in every city, there's fools to pity." Don't I know it. The show is on TV Land. It's sort of a "Shalom in the Home" kind of thing, Mr. T style.

"The Pest of the 21st Century"

2006-10-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

I've had this problem since July, perhaps even earlier. I haven't wanted to admit it to anyone except the stupid people who are supposed to "manage" my building. But since I see that the problem is rampant in NYC and could almost be considered very en vogue, and you all know that I like to bitch a lot, I will admit it: My name is Mariposa, and I have a bedbug problem. First of all, bedbugs are not like roaches and don't just happen to dirty people. I am pretty damn clean; I sometimes drift a little into the Anal Retentive category. In fact, in the olden days, bedbugs were considered the plague of the cleaning-staff having rich, since the suckers (quite literally) prefer cushier digs like comforters and mattresses. The bugs cannot be controlled by conventional means, although I have recently found bedbug sprays at the supermarket, now that the problem is so out of control in the city. There have been cases of infestations on Park and 5th Avenues, if that is any indication of the scope of this problem. The problem could be taken care of with one swift spraying of DDT, but that's been outlawed for a couple of decades. Unless you want to go online and see if you can get some contraband from Canada or something, you are limited to using pansy-ass sprays.

It took me over a month to be able to even get someone in my building's management office (Celtic Park Owner's Corp./Tudor Realty, Woodisde, Queens, to be exact, and you know I have no problem pointing fingers) on the phone to report the problem. A lot of people in my building have had infestations for a while now. One woman's infestation got so bad, she had to throw away over $9,000 in furniture and clothing, due in part to the fact that when she first went to report the problem, her complaints fell on deaf ears, and nothing got done. These "managers", let's call them, thought perhaps that she was lying because they didn't have bugs themselves, and they apparently remained inactive until they started to experience problems in their own houses. As for me, my problem was worse over the summer than it is now. Me and the X used to see a lot of them on the couch, maybe 3 in one night as we watched TV, and some of them we found because we could feel them crawling ON US. Fortunately, they did not come out when other friends were over, and since I am afraid they will come out at any time, I don't have many friends over anymore. I also feel them on my skin when they are not there, which means that very soon the problem gets into your head. So after I realized I would need to go it alone, I went online and bought almost $100 worth of Delta Dust and two sprays, one to kill them on contact, and the other, Gentrol, to make them "sterile", thereby instituting a forced family planning policy. We turned over the couch and pulled back the mesh cover, dusted and sprayed that, sprayed the upholstery, the rug, my bed, wall hangings, etc., and out of sheer paranoia, I left a little ring of Delta Dust around my couch and around my bed, which the cats sniff at and then run away. I moved both pieces of furniture away from the wall and taped up any large cracks in the floor and along the walls, of which there are many in my $1200 a month apartment, since I had asked for those to be repaired/closed months ago, to no avail. This has all helped considerably, but has not completely wiped the suckers out. Which leads me to my next round of complaints.

Now that the managers have gotten through their thick skulls that they need to do something about the bug problem since it's on their watch and it's their property, they have taken swift yet quite muddled action, even assigning a "project manager", Ms. C, to coordinate between us residents and the exterminator, Metro Pest of Queens. On August 24th or so, I trudged over to the Management office and sat there for a good hour so that I could talk to someone face to face about my problem, as none of my calls were being returned and I was getting no act-right from any of those people in general. The woman at the office, Ms. V, got on the phone with the exterminator and then told me that I would have to basically take my house apart as if I were moving and put everything in plastic bags so that the exterminators could "inspect and go ahead and spray since you've already reported a problem." She was quite nice and understanding at the time, but I know that people often smile big to cover up their unwillingness to move their asses. I made the preparations, the biggest and costliest of which was boarding my cats while the exterminators sprayed, at a cost of $92 for both cats, in addition to the separation anxiety that both babies and myself experienced. Poor Samson couldn't stop shaking on the way to the Catotel and for the whole time he was there, and he meowed accordingly, quite loudly, I've been told, since he is the momma's boy and doesn't like to be far from my side, for better or worse. When I returned from work on the day the exterminators were supposed to come, I found that furniture was indeed moved and couch cushions were strewn across the room, so I thought the job was done for now, although I'd still have to live in a virtual dumpster for three weeks until they did their follow-up spray. A few days later, though, I found out that they did not spray at all, so I had just wasted $92 dollars, which is a big deal in my broke-ass world. Fast forward to last week. Ms. C sent a letter, which I have since thrown away in my sheer disgust at their inability to do this thing right, that the exterminators would be visiting again on 27 September. Again, I went through the process of tidying up and of boarding my cats for the occasion, at the same cost. I got home, saw nothing was out of place and the apartment was untouched. Another $92 down the drain, and all Ms. C can say to me is "well, that's too bad," and honestly, she gets a little attitudinal with me when I ask her "and what do I do with my cats?" A simple question, but I have had to repeat it several times because she didn't get it the first time. No reimbursement either, not even an empty offer of one. By the way, the excuse that the exterminators gave for not coming into my apartment as scheduled: the key that security/maintenance has used for over two years to enter my apartment to make repairs and such all of a sudden did not fit the lock, which has not been changed, by the way. A lame excuse, I pointed out to Ms. C. I used to make better, more creative excuses in high school. We have since rescheduled so that the exterminators come in on my next day off, the 24th, so I can personally let them in and watch them as they work to make sure that they do it. I have also emphasized to Ms. C. that I am not spending another cent on something that may or may not happen, but i don't think this has gotten through to her. Apparently, the managers, Ms. V, her receptionist, Ms. C and the exterminators think this is a huge joke, and that money grows on trees. All told, I have spent approximately $284 just for this problem, hours of my and the X's time spent putting things in their plastic bags as well as time spent explaining things to people who quite obviously are not paying attention or are plain stupid. The landlord has been charging me rent as if nothing has happened, which I suppose is fair enough, but I hope that soon enough he gets to know for himself what an inconvenience this all is, how little help he will get, and what it is to keep shelling out $1200 a month when you have to live like one of those poor souls who are forced to take up residence in the municipal trash dumps in third world countries. However, mine is far from the worst case. The stories that I have read in the Times and on websites are really the stuff of nightmares and make my problems look like infinitesimal potatoes. At the very least, I take comfort in the fact that I am not alone in this, and people don't pass as many judgements regarding the bug problem as they used to, probably because now they have the same problem.

My advice, keep a look out for any mysterious dark spots on your bed linens, upholstery or clothing. They look like little ink spots, but they are actually bed bug droppings. Also keep a look out for any small, red, circular welts, which may or may not be itchy, because chances are they are bed bug bites. You will not feel these as they happen, sort of like when mosquitoes bite. You never know it until the bump swells up and the itch comes in, usually not until the next day. Take action immediately and complain very loudly to anyone who will listen and to those who should listen but will not. Do your own inspection. Look at folds and creases in your mattress and couch, wash any affected linens, clothes and upholstery covers in boiling hot water (this burns the bugs to death). Seal your mattress in a vinyl cover and suffocate the little sons of bitches. Run a hot shower in your bathroom, close the doors and the windows, if any, and steam the fuckers out (I've done this and whether it really works or not, I can't say, but I haven't seen any in there). If you see some, your first instinct, if you are as sadistic as me, might be to pick them up in a tissue and squeeze the life out of them. Don't do this. Find a way to get them in a sandwich bag that you can seal shut so that you have proof of the problem and ammo in case your building authorities don't want to help you. You can bring the baggie to them later and shove it in their faces to drive your point home. My problem is not as rampant, but I've heard that some people have had to check their books, wooden furniture, clothes, picture frames, electrical sockets, and crown mouldings. Go to http://doyourownpestcontrol.com, get sprays and dusts and get to it. Don't wait for help from others, even if those others have a responsibility to take action. The problem will get worse if you wait. Keep in mind that you may have to get your own exterminator, even if you rent from a large company. Best of luck and here's hoping you never have this problem! And thanks for letting me cry on your collective shoulder!

UPDATE, 10/19/06 - It's been a month, and no sign of the little buggers. I think what I will do is tell Ms. C. to cancel the exterminator (I'm sure the appointment isn't even made yet). Besides, I saw the "special" sprays that the exterminators use, and the same ones are available online. So I'm going to do this myself.

Another update of interest, 11/15 - I read in this week's "Us" magazine that Maya Rudolph from SNL and her boyfriend are suing their landlord for $45,500 because they had bedbugs in their $13,500 a month apartment. They allege that the landlord didn't do anything about it. Benedict, be afraid!

Yet one more update, 11/17 - An inspection has been performed on my house by Metro Pest, and they have found that my apartment is bug-free, no thanks to them.

D .C. Style, or Lack Thereof

2006-09-19T15:53:00.000-04:00

On 3 September, I was in Akhila and Jeff's apartment in Crystal City reading the Sunday Source section of the Washington Post, mimosa in hand and glad not to be in New York. By the by, all of you must join me in congratulating Ms. Khi and Jeff on their recent engagement! Anyway, there was an article about DC's style, or lack thereof. The author had moved from NYC to DC and related that Washingtonians are not really all that concerned about fashion, which struck her as quite odd. Let me tell you, their non-chalance shows: Toes hanging over the front edges of perfectly cute peep-toe pumps, dry and cracked heels hanging off the backs of strappy mules, color combos gone pathetically awry, thinking Marc Jacobs clothes are all available at their local Target or Big Lots, I could go on. Don't get me wrong, I love DC and I love Washingtonians. They are head and shoulders above NYC in terms of manners and politeness, for one thing, and although this often hovers on the verge of annoyingly perky, I consider it a very welcome change to the constantly grey outlooks of most New Yorkers. But Washingtonians can also be just a tad provincial about things, and let's not even touch the subject of Chocolate City's Vanilla Suburbs. And they seem to fear change, which is not good considering Washington needs a big one right about now, and I'm sure you all know of whom I speak.

New York is such a "fashionable" place (there are exceptions - go to Dyckman Street in Washington Heights for proof) that it undermines all the good things that fashion can bring, because many believe that being fashionable makes it OK to judge others who don't quite meet the standards. I admit, I fell hard into this trap when I first started going back to DC to visit. My mother can tell you how I yammered on, nose perched in the air, about all the fashion faux-pas's in the Metro, for one. I think I even offended her with my talk. But I realized that that is the beauty of a city that doesn't pledge constant adoration to the fashion gods: they judge you based on other, more concrete factors, such as what government contractor you work for, what kind of education you have, etc. Snap judgments are never good, but they are inevitable, and they go down a lot better if they are made for valid reasons other than the label on your coat.

As DC becomes more expensive, however, interest in good fashion is becoming more prevalent. Cute little boutiques selling Cynthia Rowley and Kors, among others, are springing up all over the city, especially in newly-revitalized areas like Adams-Morgan and Shaw, even in Southeast. Other areas, like my dad's neighborhood in Arlington near the Pentagon will always stay the same, conservative, and boutiques are doomed to fail there. I know this because a couple of them in the Pentagon Row and City shopping centers bit the dust after a year or so. For that reason, I don't think Washington can ever reach the depths to which New York has sunk in this regard. New York is now the best example of a "fashion victim" ever. So DC, I totally forgive you. Better to be smart and cultured and not look as hot than to be stupid with a supermodel's walk.

My unhealthy obsession with the MTA continues......

2006-08-01T14:23:00.000-04:00

Remember July 26th 2006. If you live in NYC, you'll need to remember that on that date, the MTA claimed a very large surplus, thereby postponing a fare hike that would have taken effect in January '07 (thanks for letting us know, criminals)until September '07. If you have experience with the MTA, you will know that the organization will deny any surplus come October or so, and it will be important to remember 26 July 2006 so you can throw that back at them. Meanwhile, the Port Authority has approved a $1 billion plan for a tunnel under the Hudson so Jersey folk will have an easier commute to infringe upon our territory. Can we say PRIORITIES...FUCKED...UP?

In other transit news, the N train has been voted worst on the line for the third year in a row. Hah! Where was the Straphanger's campaign when I was living in Astoria 6 and 7 years ago? The W was still only a dream, so we had nothing if not for the God-forsaken N, which by the way didn't run at all most weekends until I moved to Washington Heights. That train was so unreliable, I made up an N train dance, kind of like a rain dance. I only make up these dances for trains that hardly ever come, and 9 times out of 10, the dances work like a charm. I made one up for the A train too, but I had to perform it a lot less than the N. So if the N is the worst, I shudder to think what they are saying about the 7, the reject line, which gets all the old cars once Manhattan lines are through with them. Sloppy seconds.

The latest....there is raw sewage festering on the rail paths on the G line. The MTA won't clean it up because the leak is from a sewage system, not that they really do anything at the G train stations anyway, and the sanitation folks aren't stepping up to do it either saying that it's an MTA problem because it's on their property. How mature they all are. But one thing that does bring a sneaky little smile to my face is that the G runs through all the cutesey parts of Brooklyn, like Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Fort Greene. Shit happens, folks.

If you can't stand the heat......

2006-07-28T10:18:00.000-04:00

I bet some of my readers who've heard about last week's blackout in Queens have been wondering why I haven't been bitching about Con Ed. Well, wait no longer.

The imminent heat wave, which is supposed to start up later today, has struck fear in the hearts of most, um, outer borough folks who theorize that since Con Ed cannot apparently handle any kind of heat, the lights are destined to go out again, and who knows for how long this time around. As for me, my cats and I have been kicking it old school for the past week, even though I did have at least some electricity throughout the whole fiasco and got complete power back on Friday last. I want to conserve as much as possible, which should make my ex very happy since one of the reasons we broke up was because, according to him, I kept leaving the lights and the AC on and was otherwise wasteful. OK, OK, I've learned my lesson. I've seen the news clips on the people in Astoria who got back power for about an hour, after 6 or so days of nothing, just to have it shut off again. My thinking is that since Con Ed (emphasis on the CON) just fixed whatever problem they came up with last week, they will use this heat wave as an excuse and say that they hadn't finished their repairs and cannot continue because of the weather, yadda, yadda, yadda. On New York 1, they went over the blackouts that have happened in the past 29-30 years: the big NYC one in the Summer of Sam, 1977, several brownouts in Washington Heights with a complete blackout in 1999, the BIG one in 2003 where most of the northeast was cut off, and then this one. The track record doesn't really look that bad, but if you have had experience with Con Ed and are acquainted with the way media works, you know that there are many problems they don't even bother to report. When I lived in Washington Heights in 2000 and 2001, there were brown- and blackouts during heat so bad, it made my cat Samson jump into the cold shower with me. No lie. And when you compare NYC with other big cities, we have way too many infrastructure problems to warrant our status as "capital of the world" or the City's tax happy ways. Yeah, I'm outta here ASAP, God willing. On another note, I was talking with M-the-media-guy, who lives on the Upper East side, that NYC is a pretty ugly city for all the taxes we pay. Of course I was surprised to hear that given his cushy place of residence, but happy to hear that I am not alone on that one.

The irony last week was that Con Ed's power plant is in northwestern Astoria, across the street from some customers who lost power. That and the fact that Bloomberg, who was sitting pretty in Gracie Mansion, was claiming that a "continuing" heat wave was at fault even well after the temperatures had fallen to the 70's. That statement of course was a completely unnacceptable excuse even the first time he used it when Con Ed, in the beginning of the summer, swore to its customers and their local representatives and government that they were well-prepared for the summer (as it does indeed come every year...duh, motherfuckers), and temperatures ALWAYS get into the 90's around this time of year. Heat waves are nothing new. It took Bloomberg 4 days to cross the East river and check out the situation. That surprised me because, even though I don't really like Bloomberg that much, I didn't think he was going to be so negligent and squeamish. But, just like a good businessman, he follows the money, and it unfortunately is not in Queens, which is also kind of his own fault, but that's another story. So there I was, taking the stairs in my building (not that that's bad for me or anything), which was rendered a 7-story walk up, getting outside and looking down 48th avenue at the Empire State Building, all lit up for the tourists and the rich. Yeah, I was pretty bitter about the whole thing, but couldn't complain too much because I was spared from the worst of it. I did call Con Ed's media office last thursday to ask about the problem and was told that the company didn't even know what the problem was and therefore didn't know how to fix it. This went against everything that the media was feeding us: that Con Ed was "working tirelessly" to fix the problem, meaning that Con Ed had misled the customers, local government, everyone. And I saw just how "On It" (their new slogan) Con Ed was: the was a Con Ed truck parked across the street from my building the first night, which I was glad to see, until I got closer and saw that the repairmen had grabbed the last of the cold beers from the corner deli and were sitting on the bumper of their truck drinking away. That was not at all heartening, to say the least, and the urge to yell and curse at them in both spanish and english almost got the better of me. Pataki talked of suing Con Ed, and those guys have to at least get slapped around a bit for this. They and the MTA should be thankful that Giuliani isn't around, because he, even though he was/is a racist, would have had them by the balls already. That's the only reason I miss Giuliani. He was a strong leader who wouldn't take shit from anybody (except maybe the NYPD), unlike Bloomberg who is everyone's lapdog.

Yes, I have learned my lessons. 1. Even if I don't have to deal with Con Ed directly anymore as I have an all utilities included rent, I still have to deal with them. That's the problem, they're everywhere, and there no choice but to deal with them. Even Brooklyn's Keyspan energy is apparently part of Con Ed (so any Park Sloper's thinking they are immune to the rest of the City, sorry, you are not). 2. Conserve, conserve, conserve, and not necessarily because it's good for the earth and "helps reduce the US's dependence on foreign oil", so says Bloomberg. Those are fringe benefits. No, I will conserve so as not to give Con Ed any ammo with which to screw us again.

Editor's note: HA!!!!!

New cinematic triumph!!!!

2006-07-02T22:00:00.000-04:00

Yes, Hollywood has sunk to a new low.

Tonight I went to the movies with my mom to see the fluffy Devil Wears Prada. It was enjoyable enough, even worth, dare I say, the $11 ticket. Meryl Streep is always a fine actress, and I could not help but to be reminded of my old boss in publishing. We did not publish anything at all glamorous, but she was a prima-donna anyway and I proceeded to quit after two months of putting up with her crap. I am far from a patient person.

Anyway, we saw a preview of the new 9-11 movie, whose name I do not recall as I was busy wincing at the screen. I do remember that Nick Cage is in it because he looks a hell of a lot better than your usual NYC policeman. Is it just me, or is making a movie out of a tragedy that killed 3,000 people utterly tasteless and tacky? My mother of course thinks that the movie is absolutely necessary as people have apparently forgotten that terrorists exist, a response which I knew I was going to get since I am not all gung-ho about the war, and I acknowledge fault here for not keeping my mouth shut when I know very well how she will respond when the issue at hand has anything remotely to do with politics today. I think it was bad enough that the government got their 9-11 ass tattoos and made a mess in the Middle East insisting that it was payback time or some such shit and invoking the names of the families affected by 9-11 as justification when God only knows if those families were at all in support of their efforts, and it turned out that most were not.

I guess people in the suburbs of Washington are not really going to understand what it is to see a reenactment of a real life tragedy with people dying and buildings falling on a movie screen until it happens in their backyard. After all, it was NYC and we New Yorkers probably deserve to drop dead in their eyes anyway (how dare we come and criticize their horrible fashion sense). It also saddens me that my mother cannot see the tackiness of the movie given that she was with me in NYC on 9-11. Maybe it is just me, and I am just over-reacting because I will have a lot of time on my hands this week as I am on vacation. But one thing is for damn sure, I am certainly not going to pay to see that movie in the theatre, as I have seen it enough times on the 11 o clock news, PBS, etc., etc., and I do not need any reminding, thanks very much.

Editors note: This movie now has it's own MTV special. I hope that anyone who couldn't understand my distaste for this cinematic effort now gets it.

Why I don't do MySpace

2006-06-29T15:41:00.000-04:00

Nice idea, but it can have some really unwanted side effects. Check this out.

My dad always says, the more technology advances, the more complicated life becomes. Now, the action of hand-writing a letter, putting a stamp on it and mailing it is really something special, and that's pretty disgusting.

Then again, here I sit, writing this and posting it on my blog for you fine folks to read. OK, so I'm really selective.

Ray of Hope

2006-06-28T16:57:00.000-04:00

Sivilicious emailed me this wonderful speech that Barack Obama made in last week's Take Back America conference, which took place in DC, my hometown.

I have to confess, I shed a few tears when I read this one, because of all the harm that the current government has done to America when there are of course better solutions to the problems we face today. Some might ask "so YOU got any bright ideas, Mariposa?" Well, I have ideas, some of them may be feasible and some not, but guess what, that's why I am not in politics. I know I'm smart, but not as smart as the politicians who I want to see running things. Strive to put someone smarter than me in office, I always say. Anyone who thinks otherwise must have some very deep-seated contempt of this country.

So read the speech and enjoy it.

Ghana vs. People with Nothing Better to Do

2006-06-27T14:19:00.000-04:00

In past years, I have avoided World Cup madness like the plague. This year, I gave in, because the games are on all three TV's in my office, and the mild-mannered legal officers I work with have morphed into wild and crazy trash-talking beasts. So it's either join them or actually do a full day's work. Let me just say here how glad I am that it was Ghana that threw the US team clear off the field and made them eat shit. That was almost as great as if it had been Guatemala's soccer team. I'm so sorry to see that Ghana lost to Brazil today, but at least it was Brazil and not UK, with their lovely little pitches and cleats. Remember that most of the soccer players from Africa and Latin America learned to play barefoot in the dirt. It's only fair that one of those teams should win. This be my thinking.

I just read an article in the New York Times (select, so I can't link it - sorry) about a player on Ghana's soccer team, Mr. Painstill, who at one point in the tournament waved an Israeli flag to pay homage to his Israeli supporters. The reporter said, basically, that Mr. Painstill has the right to do whatever he wants, and I agree. Of course, it turned into this big political issue and Painstill lost a lot of supporters, but he did gain some new ones, so I doubt he's at all worried about this. I thought it was good of Painstill to acknowledge those who support him. However, in today's over-reactionary climate in which people with far too much time on their hands pass judgement on someone because of the country he pledges allegiance to, the color of his skin, and his RELIGION, etc., etc., Mr. Painstill probably should have kept his appreciation to himself. I found his action to be a nice protest against those very people.

Someone made a comment on the article saying that there this huge amount of Anti-Israel propaganda going on in the world today. While it's true that Israel has probably lost some supporters since Sharon started bombing kids, WHERE is this anti-Israel propaganda that's said to be so rampant? Maybe it is where I live, but I see many people have a lot of unwavering support for Israel. I won't say that I necessarily support Israel's actions of late and I do have some other questions, but I very much condemn the retaliatory actions on the part of some Arabs. It is disgusting of them to take these actions upon Israelis, especially since Israel was created by the UN and Britain, and the rug was simply pulled out from under the Arabs who were on that land. The fact that most Israelis are Jewish should not provide any justification for their murderous acts. I feel that both peoples are in the wrong simply because neither is about to take the high road and prefer to languish in perpetual conflict. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, plain and simple.

And now for the obligatory disclaimer: Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but this is only one Mariposa's opinion. Now please do leave me a comment if you have something to say.

Father's Day...Mother's Day....Army Day?

2006-06-22T17:16:00.000-04:00

Army Day in Guatemala is June 30th. When I first saw this on my desk calendar thingie, I was all, what in the hell is a country with a history like Guatemala's doing with an Army fucking Day? So my industrious arse Googled it.

Turns out it is a celebration/commemoration of the June 30 1871 revolt for agrarian reform in which Justo Rufino Barrios overthrew the Conservative president, Vicente Cerna. I'm all for overthrowing Conservatives and for agrarian reform. But in my readings on the United Fruit Company's history, I found a slight discrepancy. Was it not Barrios who began the selling off of Guatemalan lands to a company which came to be known as the UFCO? And doesn't that negate any agrarian reforms altogether?Anyway, about a hundred years later, there was this pesky little civil war there in which the army did most of the killing, taking jobless campesinos and making them into death squads who later blocked roads and demanded compensation for lowering themselves to army levels and joining in the massacreing. I don't know about you all, but if I were the president, I would have that day abolished as my very first presidential duty. All this talk about fixing past woes, but Army Day still exists in Guatemala of all places. As I said before, these are some half-assed and illogical times my friends. Just wanted to remind you all that this is still the case.

Kick the Tires and Light the Fires Big Daddy!

2006-06-06T16:05:00.000-04:00

It seems that Pentagoners are finally getting a clue. The US is not going to win this one, it seems. Well, that's what happens when one goes to a foreign country, takes it upon himself to overthrow the leader, throws the country into complete disarray and tries the whole divide and conquer thing. Sometimes shit backfires.

Boy, I wish I could use being over-stressed as an excuse to kill unruly people.

Fuck him in the ear!

2006-06-01T14:08:00.000-04:00

I just got done chatting with Sivilicious, my homegirl in Chi-town. She was dealing with her student loan thingies, for which the rate is now 7%, up two percentage points (Love that Bush, y'all!!). My answer to that news: This is probably the only country on earth where one who is not rolling in it and is seeking education has to agree to either put their life on the line or be indebted for life. Of course it's ridiculous, and a big reason why I have yet to do the graduate school thing. I would love the opportunity to get even more knowledge, but since it comes with such a hefty price tag, I'm good with Discovery Times and my Mac for now. I know if I wanted it bad enough, I would ante up for it, but it's a choice between getting a place and having a (quasi) permanent roof over my head, and I think for now I'd rather have the house and just exercise my brain with crossword puzzles and Jeopardy!. (By the way, Sivilicious, is there no more blog from you? Ever????)

So what good has Bush done lately? Anything? Depends on who you are and what your income is. It also has to do with where you live. First of all, to feel the glow of his latest round of tax cuts, you'll probably need to make somewhere near $200,000 or 300,000. Anything below that and you won't even feel a thing. If you make as little as I do, you can look forward to a break of about $30. If you work at the UN, this is completely unnoticeable as it is eaten by either the UN or the US mission to the UN, as part of the staff assessment of every American UN staffer goes to the US mission so they can be a part of an organization they clearly despise in order to save face. You're welcome, you ingrates.

And for those of you living in New York or Washington, DC, your anti-terror funds have been slashed to provide more funds to places like Jacksonville, Florida. If you live in New Orleans and are still recovering from Katrina, you are still up shit's creek, broke and without a paddle. The funny/disappointing thing? On some risk assessment "scorecard" that Secretary Chertoff of Homeland Security uses to try and get a clue, it is stated that New York, a primary target for it's financial institutions (duh) not to mntion a city already hit TWICE by terrorists, has no important monuments to protect and therefore does not deserve adequate funding. Well, Bloomberg, so much for trying to get all chummy with the Repubs. I could have told you they would stab you in the back. You did throw one hell of a party and violated the civil rights of some of your citizens, though, so all is not lost.

Go here for Bush's latest ratings. They are dissapointingly high, I say. People smacking themselves in the face again.