for the record
April 13, 2009
four days have passed and i am still savoring my mom’s riquisimos nopales con cilantro, onions, tomatoes, lime, probably some salt and who knows what other mouth watering, crack-like addictive substance. dang. (a moment of silence for the nopales, please.)
i need to learn how to cook.
also, for the record, i am officially removing ketchup as my seventh food group and replacing it with red velvet. red velvet anything. red velvet cake. red velvet cupcake. red velvet donut. red velvet pan dulce.
dear mom
April 10, 2009
this holy weekend (tonight included) i will not throw a party or go to any parties. i will stay close to home and go to church with you on sunday. maybe i’ll even keep my nice clothes on after mass. i can’t make any promises though because you know i’m all about my sweatpants and my chanclas on the weekends. (yes, i realize this does not help my quest to find a boyfriend, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.) this weekend, i will behave. i will do this for you and for me and because i love Jesus.
the woman with peach lips
April 2, 2009
and inky black hair eases into the chair in front of me and begins to talk about all the times she’s been turned away. her scripts, her movie ideas, her art. over and over the answer was no. still, she kept pushing. she keeps pushing. when she talks about her work, her hands flail about like a ringmaster — passion on the loose, a riot on the way.
i sat there in awe. i could hear her matches igniting. her life’s matches, the kind laura esquivel talked about in like water for chocolate. the kind every person is given when they’re born. one by one, esquivel wrote, they are lit by “a melody, a word, a caress, a sound.”
“if there’s nothing to trigger the explosion, our box of matches becomes damp and then we’ll never be able to light any of them.”
i drove away thinking about the costco-sized box God assigned me. about all the happily charred pieces and those that might have gone soggy in my first 28 years of life. then i thought of the dry, intact ones, still waiting to be set off.
today i turn 29. even if i burn every last one of my fingers, i plan to light as many of those little sticks as i can in this last year of my 20s.
the words
March 28, 2009
at the latina monologues on friday. they were powerful. they leaped from that illuminated stage, bounced off the dark walls of the tiny, tiny theater, way back to the last row where i was sitting and crawled up my spine, sending shivers through me.
a sample from monologue # 8 on life:
“I’m going to puff up my hair. I’m going to pinch my cheeks. I’m going to put on my pink lipstick and jump right in.”
a reunion
March 21, 2009
amongst journalists. with tons to say and ask of our future.
happy lucky charms day
March 17, 2009
watermelon’s bunny
March 16, 2009
fluffy and cute, i won’t tell you what he does to his stuffed bunny friend when no one’s watching. or watching, because frankly, the fury one has no shame.
daylight savings
March 7, 2009
and you know what that means. spring time. summer time. and more sunshine. rays of light delivered by the truck loads from now until christmas. perfect afternoons to catch up on napping. i gave into a four-hour siesta today after the long drive home from san diego. curled up under the blanket, sunk my head into the pillow and awoke to total darkness, so satisfied and guilty, it’s a sin.
become big
March 6, 2009
and write with the whole world in your arms.
-- natalie goldberg
