Color

I was asked, "what are some things that come to mind when you think of Latino Culture?"  I answered, "family and of course, food" but then I paused because those are the same answers that everyone gives.  And while family and food are great there is so much more to our culture.  So, I thought again and decided that the thing that comes to me most in Latino Culture is color.

We love color.  Not nice unassuming colors like navy, white, and brown, no we like color.  We love creamy turquoise, rich purple, hot pink sierra orange, bright yellow and radiant red.  When you drive through a typical Latino neighborhood you can count the number of bright blue and aqua houses.  They're gaudy and garish and when we were teenagers we were embarrassed cause we wanted to live in a white mansion like on 90210.  Instead, we lived in a neon pink houses with white fences and statues of le Virgen de Guadalupe in the yards.  Now, me, personally, I grew up in San Antonio in a bright yellow house with white trim but luckily no saints in the yard.

My grandmother loves flowers.  She plants pink and yellow roses.  She has gold and burnt orange chrysanthemums.  And the colors of her flowers are reflected in the ribbons and dresses worn by the ballet folklorico dancers who performed during fiesta.

At fiesta color is everywhere.  Floats are covered in tissue paper flowers in violet, green, and pink.  Burro shaped piñatas in yellow and blue swing from trees and spill bright colored dulce down to the kids below.

Even our food is color, red sauce on enchiladas and green chili sauce on everything else.

And we are color.  We have opinionated tías and inebriated tíos.  We have loud mothers and calming fathers, bratty brothers and sisters and crazy cousins who ride motorcycles and fix cars on the weekends. 

We are a people made of color.  Our history is deep and rich like the blue sky.  Are future is bright as the yellow sun.  And our spirit burns fiery red. 
 

Frozen in the Closet

*Since, the blog I was writing has turned into more of a project I've decided to post an old blog I wrote on a different site several years ago.  It's worth a second read.  It was quite funny.

   

The university is hosting a group of Junior High Band Camp kids.  I was walking past a particular set of these kids and over heard the funniest conversation and no it was not about a clarinet being stuck up a particular orifice.

This is what I heard:

 "They've found people.  They've found people in their closets and they were frozen.  They were frozen like that cause they were drinking caffeine...and the caffeine it froze them cause caffeine it freezes people.  And they were in their closets and they were frozen from drinking caffeine in their closets."

Based on this speech I have deduced that although I have not been in a closet drinking caffeine I have drank enough of the stuff that I'm sure I should have frozen to death.  As I'm still walking around I can only surmise that I am the walking dead.

 

Being Anti-Social

I’ve come to the realization that I can be a pretty anti-social person.  I realize that I’m not the only person around who can be anti-social but to those who know me it probably seems really contradictory for me to believe myself to be anti-social.  When I’m around my friends I’m always chatting, laughing, making jokes, etc.  I’m the freakin’ life of the party sans lamp shade.  I’m rarely afraid to walk up to people I don’t know and start talking.  In my job there is a certain amount of extroversion that’s needed. 

However, it depends on the people and situation.  Recently, I had to spend a lot more time with a group of people I didn’t want to.  It’s not that they’re not nice people.  It’s that I don’t really like them.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron but they’re just not my type of people.  And perhaps, my dislike has something to do with how I feel when I’m around them.  I always feel like I’m back in high school and I’m the awkward geek stuck in a group project with all the popular/cool kids.  They’re all nice to me and don’t really hate me but they laughing at me and not with me.  When I’m with these people it seems there’s nothing I can really contribute to the conversations without sounding like a moron.  I don’t have anything in common with them.  

If you don't know who these guys are we can't be friends.

Now, when I’m with my friends or fellow geeks it’s a different story.  In my group I can say and do whatever comes to mind without fear of judgment.  And I do.  I’ve been known to string together a sentence with so many fucks in it that it’s cracked through the ozone layer.  I come up with ridiculously funny threats, like using a rusty stapler to staple a speeding ticket to a speeders forehead.  I can be sarcastic without fear of offending someone because they’re probably going to be sarcastic right back to me. 

And, I suppose that’s what this is really about.  No one is really anti-social or one hundred percent introverted.  A lot of it has to do with the company and the activity.  So, we all have moments when we have to spend time with people we don’t much like but the reward for this time spent is the knowledge that you’ll soon be able to join your group where you can fly your geek flag high.      

Gandolfini's death is making me way sadder than maybe I ought to be.  I feel like wearing black and going to his funeral with funeral flowers. 

Maybe, it's because he, like my father, died so suddenly at such a young age.  Maybe, it's that he was a great actor in any role not just as Tony Soprano.Or maybe, it was his performance as Soprano. 

Gandolfini helped us to love, hate, understand and accept the real life (minus the mobster stuff) Sopranos of the world.  Soprano was a human being with human frailties.  He made mistakes and felt the complex emotions behind making those mistakes.  He could feel remorse and justification simultaneously for any of his actions.  We all have versions of Soprano in our life, hell some of us are Soprano and Gandolfini's portrayal made us understand and accept.  I will miss him for all that he taught me about life, love, hate, and acceptance.   

1961--2013

Father's Day

For a long time I hated Father's day because it reminded me too sharply of my loss.  He died unexpectedly a few years back.

Santa-daddy & me

Now, I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have had a dad.  He wasn't perfect.  He made a shitload of mistakes, said the wrong things, and made the wrong choices.

But, he was always there.  Not when I or others thought/believed he should be there but when I needed him and didn't know it.  he was always proud of my intelligence and creativity.  He laughed at my jokes and pranks.  

My brother's kindergartner graduation

I think for him, I, along with my brother, was everything he aspired to be but never achieved.  Smart, strong willed, proud, and compassionate.

I wish I'd been able to tell him that he was wrong to think that we got all our talents and from our mom.  He gave us his sense of humor, his perspective and view on life, and he gave us the belief that we could be more.

Emotional Baggage

As we travel through life it’s inevitable that we will accumulate more and more emotional baggage.  And, you're lying if you say you don't have some sort of baggage.  Everyone has baggage big and small.  Unless you’re a hermit and even then there’s a reason –baggage—for why you chose to live a life of solitude.  

However, it’s not the baggage that’s important.  It's what you chose to do with that baggage.  The way I see it, we have two options in our lives.  We can either carry all the shit onto the plane with us or we can use the check-in counter.

If we chose to carry it on board we piss off our fellow passengers and block off anyone interested in sitting next to us.  So, we end up alone with only our baggage to keep us company.  Doesn't sound like much fun does it?

Our other choice is to check it in.  The baggage is then loaded under the plane.  It seems more expensive but in the long run it save a lot of time and makes you a much more approachable person. 

And here’s the thing about checking baggage in, as time passes you’re going to realize that you don’t really need all that extra stuff.  The emotion attached to that big black suitcase will be gone and it won’t matter if the airline of life has lost it.  You might even ask yourself, “Why was I even holding on to that crap?” 

I've tried out each option.  In my twenties, I carried all that shit with me and found that I wasn't very happy.  My relationships were short lived because my seatmate didn’t like being compared to others.  Now, in my late thirties, I’ve found that using the check in has been the best option.  I still know I have baggage and I think about it from time to time but since it’s not sitting right next to me it’s not blocking me from meeting new people. 

Sure, there are still some things that we carry around.  It’s why we have carry-on bags but if the situation doesn’t fit into that small bag well it should be under the plane.  And, if you can’t let the problem go then you need to take a later flight, spend some time on the ground, recuperating from the last flight.  Then when you’re ready you can get back on the plane and meet new passengers.   

 

Yes, it’s hard to let things go, to move on, and forgive but it’s worth the price if you can acquire new love, see new lands, and forget old hurts.    

My Hetro-Life Mate, CORN!

I don’t have a lot of close friends.  Don’t get me wrong I have friends but I only trust a few with my deep dark secrets and the passwords to my bank accounts, haha.  My closest friend, the one I trust with everything is my friend Corn.  Corn isn’t her real name but hey I’m trying to protect her “innocence” and if she’s reading this she’s probably laughing way to hard at being called Corn.

Corn is one of the many stupid and nonsensical jokes that we share.  It had something to do with exchanging a ride to the store for a roll of paper towels.  I made the comment that next we’d be trading corn for services.  It was random and silly and we laughed way too long and hard about something that makes sense to no one but us.

We call each other our hetro-life mates.  It started when I drove her to her kid’s Meet the Teacher Night.  The teacher asked who I was and being in a smart-ass mood I said I was Corn’s hetro-life mate.  Corn wanted to kill me and the teacher just looked confused.  Anyway, the phrase has become so common that even her husband will use it, “This is my wife and her hetro-life mate, Weesha.”

And that’s the thing about our friendship, it’s partially based off of random comments and jokes that only we seem to understand.  It’s also base off of non-judgment and understanding.  She knows where all the bodies are buried and she has never judged me on the uncountable mistakes and fuck ups I’ve made.  And I do some incredibly stupid things knowing full well they’re stupid.  And she always watches and waits to catch me when I inevitably fall.  She’s the one person in my life who understands and accepts that I have to live my life on my terms even if they aren’t the same terms she chooses to live by. 

Corn is my hetro-life mate.  She’s that special person I love more than others and I’m always grateful to her friendship.