By Janie Diaz

for my wall streeters, my darlings,

2011-10-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

time to think... no such thing...

but between meetings and such. where's your warrior? you must have one within you no matter how much you hate war or violence. make your message clear, whatever it may be. Whatever it may be, God bless you for exercising your right to speak, type, say, scream, email, facebook, tweet, or WHATEVER--

"There is no love in modern life, it's a miracle i even made it this far..." -Morrissey

99%ers, go, go, go...

we can't all be there, but many more feed you in ways you cannot see. we bless you. we encourage you. we adore you. we are the percent you're not missing, the percent that's missing you while you do what we wish we could, and you represent us.

moms. dads. soldiers. sons. daughters. all of the above wishing you healthy brightness from wherever you can garner it for us ALL.

I wanna be adored

2010-11-28T00:08:00.000-08:00

yes, just like the tragic Stone Roses song, "I Wanna be Adored," i really do. i really do. like it's not enough to have a husband and daughter who i dote on regularly, it's like i need fans; i need cheerleaders. i don't think this is irregular; i think most people who need them won't say so... and i think nearly all people need them.

why? why would you need someone outside your immediate circle to cheer you on? well, if you're at all like me, you need people to tell you that the work you've done/are doing is noteworthy, and the way they tell you that is by proclaiming their love for what you've already done, be it yesterday or ten years ago (or ten years from now.)

once you have children you realize you've become extended -- for those with children older than mine it means if your kid does well in karate you feel exonerated for something... though you cannot name what. for me, with a small kid, it means i feel like an ass pretty much all the time because she's two, and people who are two make all kinds of fumbles. these fumbles, for me, are reminders of my own personal "woopsie-daisies" in daily life. the kinds of things that cause me to wonder whether my brain was in my head or not.

whatever the reason, whether it's human nature or just me being me, or just being sensitive, emotional, needy, vying for worthiness, needing to be needed is ultimately human, and in so being, is innately part of trying to both fit in, and stand apart.

if you're one of those who makes an effort to stand apart by making sure everyone knows you don't need them, good luck to you... after all, you were born in a human body for some reason. i find it hard to believe that reason was to be ignored; on purpose or not.

i thought i knew what to say

2010-11-17T00:11:00.000-08:00

but as it turns out i do not. instead, i have thoughtfully prepared absolutely nothing for you.

so take this time to pretend like you're reading something important -- just enough to fool those around you so as not to be bothered. when someone asks what you're doing on the computer, tell them you're reading the latest installment from Maureen Dowd or catching up on your stock trades or whatever the hell it is you do on your computer to make people leave you the hell alone (like for me, right now i am pretending to write a blog as to be left the hell alone.)

now take the next two minutes to think about nothing. if you find yourself incapable of thinking of nothing, think about the last time you played Uno, or the first time you can remember playing Uno, or think about kids in sprinklers in summertime.

[you're off the clock...]

[two minutes later -- take the time damnit!]

now that you have had two minutes to yourself, go do whatever you need to do.

it

was

only

two

minutes.

lovin' you ain't always easy, fool

2010-11-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

i don't mince words. You all should know that by now. so here's a shoutout to a country song i wish i could write, "Lovin' You Ain't Always Easy, Fool."

good love, the kind that never comes in complete packages, is the way to go, i think. it might be that neighbor you've had for so long you've become close enough to criticize one another. it could be your dog -- the lil' friend that's stood by while you've made the most absurd choices... the ones that lead you down lanes of horror. but most of all, the fool who loves you and sticks by your insane choices is that person you'll decide to spend the rest of your life with. And you'll find yourself saying in one way or another, "Lovin' you ain't always easy, fool!"

just remember, the sentiment is not a one-way street. nonetheless, let's focus on how you feel for the time being. because you're right, right! yes, at least long enough to get you through an argument... the same argument you have every single time you have an agrument. tell me i'm wrong. go ahead.

ah, love. it tries to be forgiving. some love is easily forgiving, others kinds... not so much. partnerships are hard as hell, raising kids, creating goals, daily chores, daily hassles, bills, appointments, the friends you have to attend to, the lack of sleep, the overworking that causes you to wish you could be alone forever... seriously, forever in a cool, dark cave. alas, life begs you to pay attention to it, and all its players. stoopid! i'm over it! i'm fucking tired! and then your heart gets involved, and you carry your crotchety ass to the shower and begin anew. begin again. and try to be fresh for those you love, even some you don't love at all. though you may pretend you do. or try to.

lovin' you ain't always easy, fool. it's not just a mantra for the 40-years married couple. it's the truth in surviving humanity, in surviving yourself. being good to people all the time is probably for the best of us all, but it sure ain't the easiest of all.

remembering the true loves of your whole life can help, be they friends, family, old flames, carriers of your heart, the sickness in love you personified years ago. be forgiving. love the lost, especially when you are among them. love the self-indulged, the drifter, the fool, the crazy, the perfect, the lonely, and the attention-starved, no matter how crazy any of them drive you. because guaranteed, you drive at least one -- and i'm being forgiving here -- at least one person crazy all the time. i know i do.

Doing better when letting go... a little

2010-11-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

right now on the patio table i am writing from the following items are hanging out:

dog shock collar
flashlight
bug spray
porpoise figurine
more bug spray
post-its
three empty beer bottles
ratchet set
Bronson book
bell hooks book
pencil
empty french fries bag
staple gun staples
liquid nicotine drops
junk mail
bottle opener
my phone
another pencil
ashtray
pirate figurine
three tiny felt-tip pens
dried bar of Trader Joe's soap

quite an inventory. but what in life is not a crazy inventory? no matter what you may do to organize it, life is an inventory of random goodies, thoughts, things, ideas, people, and other amalgams lesser or better known to you, your psyche, your heart, your brain... and whatever other parts of yourself you opt to acknowledge.

generally i do not do well when working within a cluttered space. that's not to say there is not clutter in my life -- quite to the contrary, i prefer a house with a little too much in it -- to many books, too many gadgets and doodads, too many people and too many pets, and certainly, too much stuff that cannot fit under one single heading. but i cannot have a desk or tabletop with piles of shit on it -- i just can't stop thinking about the shit surrounding my computer and my hands when i am trying to write.

so now you're saying, "but wait, you just listed a ton of shit around you... and you're writing right now... what gives?" well, i'll tell you what gives. i'm letting go. just a little, just for long enough to see if i can. and i am. and i think i'm doing better for it. why?

because sometimes letting what exists around you just be there can lend a level of consciousness ya just don't have otherwise. some call it junk, clutter, a mess, dirtiness, all other labels that make it bad, negative.

an intuitive moment can be brought on by a porpoise figurine or a flashlight. a shock collar or a can of bug spray. so let go a little, all yee lovers of perfect space. perfect space does not a perfect life make, and it does not stop the messiness of time or the disorganized manner in which life will work... the disarray can be the beauty you seek. not always, but just when you can let go... a little.

Mix-Tapes Across the Planet

2010-11-01T00:20:00.000-07:00

I think everyone on Earth should be supplied with the materials and time needed to create a mix-tape for a complete stranger. Rather than making it one for a girl you like or the boy you wish you could kiss, we'd all be given a 90-minute tape, access to whatever songs we needed, and roughly an afternoon to compile. Not knowing who it would be given to, how old, what gender, religion, part of the world, class, color, sick, well, famous, or destitute, somehow, some team would be set up to distribute the mix-tapes, ensuring that everyone made one, and everyone got one. Those who are newborns would have their mix-tape safely held until their second birthday, those who lay dying could listen til they pass, and so on.

By now you've already said to yourself, "Aw, man, I'd HAVE to make sure I get a Miles Davis song on there," or,"Dude, I hope my mix-tape goes to a young kid in a remote village so I can expose him to Operation Ivy!"

While you are cool for liking these groups/musicians, the point of the exercise is not to masturbate your audio library; it's to see what feelings it invokes to remember what it felt like the first time a song painted on your heart and in your mind exactly what you felt when you were feeling something so strong it was surging from your abdomen, melting your brain, having southern bound excursions, delicately thumbing through the pages that are you... not the you that you see in the mirror, but the you that you see when you catch a glimpse of your profile's reflection on the side of a building. THAT. That right there. The songs in your head.

It's the feelings. Not the girls or the boys or the moms and dads or the lack of any of them. The experience, both cerebral and coronary, both in your hippocampus and in your atriums, yes, the feelings. You may tie a certain song to a break up with a John, another song to a breakup with a Jewish doctor, another song to losing your virginity, another to the loss of your intellectual innocence, another to the death of a loved one, or an entire album to finding out you'd have psoriasis for the rest of your life. The events are meaningless to the song -- the song does not know you, YOU know the SONG.

So when you're mix-tape winds up in the hands of an eight-year-old in a Kenyan village, she is not most likely to appreciate that you were tattooed for the first time at 15, living a life revolted by and in revolution to your parents, sneaking out to sing the entire digitally remastered Ziggy Stardust album with extra tracks in your best friend's hand-me-down Taurus. Any child with that much insight belongs on Montel Williams. No, they will not get that about you, or from the song(s).

We've all had the experience of loving a song/album/band/musician that we'd tout to our friends as more magical than every carnival ride and Dairy Queen in history combined, only to have them listen to it... and talk over the entire song about how they are hungry, how their parents are dummies, how so-and-so blew them up, how they cheated through college, and so on. Why is it that that people cannot shut up for a 3:12 track? WHY? Because they don't know the song, and the song cannot make them know it.

So instead of focusing on being sooper kewl and making sure all those bootleg tracks that NOBODY has are on your mix-tape to a total stranger who may be an 88-year-old grandmother of four in Liverpool, focus on what words, what instruments, and what elements of the music transcend all times and cultures, all logic and space, all momentary things.

Make a mix-tape and send it to a random person's address, I don't care where you get it from, juts make sure it gets to someone, someone who doesn't know you. I'm going to start mine off with this:

Ode to Feeling & Wine, and also Beer

2010-10-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I had a beer, but I'm having beer tonight, Stella to be precise. Lord knows, I have always liked an ice cold beer. I learned to love wine later, red wine especially. So many occasions in the late 1990s of my life can be benchmarked by consumption of red wine.

But I have always loved beer. I have always loved super crazy cold beer. Frosty, nearly frozen beer. So here's the ode to feelings, as we have already discussed wine... and beer.

There are things and people in life that are within reach that make you feel more whole than you did a moment ago. The delicious artisan bread with olive oil and Manchego, the person in line at the coffee shop that smiles and says, "Go ahead, I'm still making up my mind."

These are moments that are small, fleeting, warming for just a moment. Wishing for the big ones only leaves you wishing -- and forgetting about the small ones that mean so much.

There's pulsation and true pleasure in getting to know who you are in such small moments. What may seem insignificant becomes your Ode to Feelings, or at least it has for me.

I reach and pray for such moments. I wish and wish and love them all. I try to remember that while a lot of my life has been painful, or painted painful to be more correct, I still have the ability to see and recognize what greatness is out there, all across the world.

It is great wine, great beer, great people.

There are lights on in this house that ought not be, nonetheless, there are undulations that creep into every soul that enliven it from time to time. I fear there is a scarcity in feelings that my soul cannot tolerate. And so it seeks to feel where feelings call like sirens out to them.

Drawing what is far away nearer if it soothes cannot be bad. Conversely, remembering what is near that daunts me is always worth the dangerous chance of forgiving, loving, tempting when I can.

There's been enough now to toast over, to trash houses over, to enslave myself to, to count, to stop counting, to thresh out, to throw out, and now to reinvigorate.

There are no dogs in a fight that makes me walk shore-side blissfully. There are no dogs in a fight that strengthen my feeling that goodness remains in this world. And there are no fights when feelings, like wine, are opened just when there is no exact occasion to open them for.

Salud, Cheers, a toast to wine and feeling, the pallet that makes humanity real again for me.

The Land of Oz, but Me

2010-10-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

Somewhere Over the Rainbow... if that song doesn't grab your heart and force tears out of it nothing will. Or perhaps you just don't understand it deeply, fully in your heart. For most, it's just a song from the movie the Wizard of Oz. For others, it's a song about what life was meant to be, how it was shown to us through the loving eyes of parents. For some, it is the song of longing, longing to be something more, to have another day, to stop being misunderstood, to end all that hurts.

I bought a beautiful book for Zea that illustrates the song. I couldn't even read the words to her without choking up. So I had to ask myself why the longing, and what will it mean for us both? The longing for me is and always has been the desire for approval. I have always wished to be loved. Though I know many people love me, I often wonder why, and for how long. I wonder if it's me they love or some image I have cast upon them that they love.

The rawest, most bare part of me suggests a person in need of constant revival through approval. Yet the me that I am suggests a person so strong she resists approval, even denies it. But between those two is the real me, the person who sits on the ledge watchguarding it all. That self almost never testifies if at all.

So what does it mean to be over the rainbow? How can you be there while still alive, still sure of yourself, still believing in promise, still able to hope while having faith that it's all the way it should be?

There is no way. My belief is that I am what I was meant to be, and that's a pretty decent person. The rainbow is my own ascent toward my better self, which is nothing more than the truest me. To extrapolate, the truest me is the rawest me, so the animal who is watchguarding is merely there to keep me from showing others what's really going on inside.

When I have endeavored to fire this watchguard my life has become sizably more difficult. But what's important is the tangible ability to have insight into what I am, and not what others tell me I am. Because by almost scientific degree, I know that I am good, even if it is over a rainbow.

The Doorway to Winter

2010-10-05T03:17:00.000-07:00

It won't be long now until it's winter. Too bad humans don't hibernate for months on end. I think the bit of respit would be good for us all. Just think: two or three months slumber, unencumbered by bills or tears, by inexplicable reasons for Internet not working, by human drama, no texts, no faxes (yes, some people still fax though why I am not sure,) no hair care products, no issues with plugged drains or worries about who fed the dogs or why the cat is missing.

Winter holds all kinds of symbolism in it. Some of it's bullshit, seasonal, very Walgreen's. Some of it is instilled in us from memories, very filial, like hot cocoa with grandpa. And some of it is intrinsic and embedded, like the knowing in our olfactory glands that tells us, "hey, pssst, winter is afoot."

But are any of these more important than the other? I say no. I say the ebb and flow of them all, the mixing of them like half and half in coffee that you've added sugar to, that's what makes it the time in 12 months that sends you reeling, thinking of times past, wondering what to do, where to go, who is who, and among them, who is you.

Seasonal depression. Yes, there is sadness in the cold. But there is sadness in all things if that's what you're after. Shit, you can find fuck all in anything. You can find happiness in a slaughter, people do it all the time, "Oh this steak is delicious!" Nothing wrong with it, it's all perspective, and the perspective that the lense of winter gives us is generally a foggy one, a glass through which lesser known things in other seasons can be seen. It's a time for paucity, a time for reflection, a time to mourn the scheduled pain of the past year, a time to forget that forgiving is good because the time of marinating in experience is on time again, as it is each year.

Winter each year comes on and seems like a decade, then as spring approaches, it's all wrapped up like Christmas and we forget it was ever there until the next set of cooler months approach. But cooler months are all the time, in everyday life. Each day holds all seasons, and each moment is a season itself.

I look forward to winter. I love how the traffic behind my house sounds different, I love how the wind seems to echo in cold weather, I love how people gather, though I wish for meaning in other seasons. For now, the cat is missing, there is a plugged drain, and I have to feed the dogs. Evolution, please provide us with hibernation.

Jose, bell hooks, My Life as Interpreted by Dreams and Ideology

2010-10-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

Rhetoric. What funny business. I've always enjoyed a good discussion on what it really is and why it matters. bell hooks has a funny way of making rhetoric matter for the small, but not the small minded. She speaks of all kinds of whys and hows, and what's more, she has solutions in her writing. So it's not bullshit like so much other rhetoric is -- this ain't empty speech.

bell talks about the disadvantaged and how they can make themselves seen -- but first they must have the gusto and the desire to step out of the fear of standing up to whomever their oppressors are. In the case of some, the oppressor is the parent. When discussing physical abuse and emotional warfare on the child soul, hooks writes, "Certainly, when I reflect on the trials of my growing-up years, the many punishments, I can see now that in resistance I learned to be vigilant in the nourishment of my spirit, to be tough, to courageously protect that spirit from forces that would break it."

And so on to Jose. Here is a man who is not meant for the classroom, a child whose youthful education was stolen by those who needed him to feed the horses, milk the cows, feed the chickens, cut firewood, fetch water, and on and on. School was not an option. Not a victim's bone in his body about it -- that's just the way it was.

And so his graduation from plumbing school was to him -- to us -- like a graduation from Harvard Law. bell hooks speaks about how students of any color suffer from not fitting into a classroom for a variety of reasons, and even when they do, suffering from the malady of non-communication for fear they will be judged. A student that hooks quotes in Talking Back writes:

"My voice is not fit to be heard by 120 people. To produce such a voice, my temperature increases and my hands shake... I am not relieved by voicing my opinions. Placing my opinion up to be judged by the public is a form of opening myself to criticism and pain. Those who do not share my eyes cannot see where to tred lightly upon me... my fear is that I will not be understood... I will be misunderstood; I will not be respected as a speaker; they will name me Stupid in their minds; they will disregard me. I am afraid."

Jose has always felt this way, which is why we had to find a school where he would be able to speak with action, a place where he could show what he could do with his mind by using his hands. And he did, and it was a glorious victory. The first in his family to receive any degree of any kind from any institution.

My life I can currently interpret and dream for through the words of bell hooks and the action Jose took. I look at my dreams as a highly educated person and know that I have in spades what Jose does in education -- but what have I in terms of desire, in terms of reaching for something better? He beats me in spades.

So what's my dream? My dream is to live up to what I ought to know I am good at by now: To be heard, and as bell hooks discusses in her book, to know my audience when I write. You cannot write for everyone. That's what I have learned from bell. She says to actively choose your audience or you will lose them all; and she says to start with who you are. So my dream is to figure out where I fit so I can write from there. It wasn't hard for bell to find her audience once she had the epiphany: she was a strong black woman in particular place at a particular time when being as such was not tolerated. So she knew that and learned to speak in that voice. But what am I? I cannot rest on my heritage or where I was raised -- both are radical mish-mashes of cultures and countries and ways of thinking and being.

While I dream my dream I have a special something that helps me remember that the disenfranchised have ways of making it happen, and so then should I. Thank you bell hooks, and thank you Jose for setting the bar for my new dreams of me.

Lights Please

2010-09-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

When you don't have all the answers but you feel you have been true

and the moments get you nearer to the world you wish was yours

don't forget that you were shaved-headed, crazy, wild, and loving

remember that people took you like hard liquor til they knew you

and most of all, the memories that stain your soul

good and bad and indifferent

have stood you here today

and lasted you long enough

to remind you not to forget

who

you

are

Amazing Experience with Qwest Operator

2010-09-21T01:15:00.000-07:00

I hate Qwest. I have used them for years now out of no choice, really, because Cox is just ridiculously expensive, and even though it usually costs me several hours of customer service talk-time every couple of months, the price is right.

I got an email yesterday saying I owed Qwest $242. Impossible -- literally -- not possible. So I called. And I waited. And I held. And finally, I was helped by someone rad. Her name was Lequisha Johnstone. It's all too familiar for those who know me and know I worked in a credit card call center back in 2003. So the epitome is the experience I had itself... yet I was happily surprised and amazed by what Lequisha and I shared.

Lequisha told me that the error (too long a story) was on the part of UPS, and not on the part of Qwest. At first I didn't believe her because of my long and horrible history with Qwest. As she further explained, I came to realize Lequisha was right... fuck me... it WAS the fault of UPS.

Now for most, this would just be dribble. For me, it hits too close to home. Years ago, UPS fuct up a very important package. All kinds of shit hit me like a ton of bricks and I started crying. Lequisha asked, "Wassup gurl, why you cryin? Who you cryin fo?" I didn't have words. I told her my life story, the long version -- and she made time for it.

When I was done, she told me hers. Not too strangely, we had so much in common. We cried together, we prayed together (mind you this is a Qwest operator on paid time) and she told me I had made her day. When I asked how (because all I had done was tell her how difficult my past was making my present,) she said, "Because... (tears) today was a day when I was feelin' like nobody else could understand what I been through... I was feelin' (tears, both of us) like the man upstairs forgot to tap me and tell me it was time to be happy sometimes at least."

We talked for several more minutes until Lequisha had to get back to work (these convos are taped after all.) After taking my credit card info, Lequisha said, "Don't ever forget you the one in charge of you. If God forgets you, that's on his time. It's up to you to remember you. I'll be prayin' for you gurl."

And I returned the sentiments. And so it goes.

Thank you Qwest for providing me with such horrible service that I got to speak with Lequisha. God bless her and her family. I love you Lequisha!!!

Autumn Rain

2010-08-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

I had a writing professor in college who asked us to write a poem and she forced us to use the title, "Autumn Rain" to see what we would do with a) a title everyone else was using, and b) a title that was so cliche that it sounded like something that would be in the diary of a 15-year-old stricken by the heartache of their first breakup.

I wish I could find mine. I remember thinking it was the shit, that I had somehow evaded the stupidity of the title. But who cares? Autumn Rain, Jesus. So the point I'd like to make is about labels (how cliche!)

No matter what labels people force upon your work, your creative enterprise, yourself as a person, as an individual, you can make their Autumn Rain your own by writing the poem yourself.

Yeah, they got to pen the title, but you get to pen the poem. And it might be the shit, or it might be shit, it's up to you.

So here's the challenge: write a poem entitled "Autumn Rain" and post it here or on your own blog and send me the link. I wanna see what all y'all come up with out of such a miserably cliche title. But above all, think about the title muthafuckaz have put on you and make it your own. Whatchu got to lose?

NUTHIN'

Here's your [stupid!] inspiration:

Autumn Rain

meltdown central | it's all okay

2010-08-24T03:32:00.000-07:00

omg, omg, omg. instead of oooommm, omg has been my mantra for the past several days. i work at home and have important clients -- hell, all my clients are important to me whether they're paying $400 a month or $2000 a month, you can't leave one behind because as with any other job, even if it's the one guy in Nowheresville, USA who just needs me to make sure his tweets are politically correct, if he has a bad experience with me it can reverberate across the universe.

so how do you reconcile the differences between what the priorities of your life are? i look into my daughter's eyes when she wants my attention, while i'm typing my ass off for a press release or a blog and think, hey there, little cookie, mama's doin' this for you! but lil' cookies don't understand the madness of making ends meet, and if it were up to me, they'd never have to.

but there it is, the truth. them bills gotsa be paid and no baby can do her homeworkz in the dark! she's too young to know now, and i'm thankful for that. jose has been working so hard it puts the dudes who put together the pyramids to shame. here we are though, and as Gloria Estefan would say, we're "coming out of the dark!" (i think i have to download that now so i can have a good cry -- a healthy cry.)

but i think i'll stick with Lil' Wayne and Bronson and T.I. on this one. Neither of the Duurty South stars know Bronson, but I know them all. Bottom line: it's all okay, it will all be okay, tell your story until it feels okay, help other people feel okay, surrender to not being okay when you don't feel okay, love life even when cockroaches are swarming across the floor.

and bottom-bottom line: it's all gonna be okay, even when it's completely not (easy for you to say... easy for you to say to say too... say it til you believe it, for the love of yourself muthafuckaz!)

Bronson says love your mom! (he really does say that)

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

2010-08-20T02:34:00.000-07:00

nothing. don't like 'em. but what would i do for what i want? anything (well, just about.)

struggle. i believe more people have been struggling lately than normal. and the struggles have been harder. BUT... most of who i know who are experiencing such struggles are for the first time in their lives taking a look at why they're struggling. it's not been so easy for me, though i have done my damndest to make strides. and i have.

my daughter was stung by a bee. no reaction. 48 hours later her foot was the size of a potato. ER. drugs. pediatrician. then the health insurance said we weren't covered anymore... and then i wanted to snuff myself. after picking up three different drugs we were on our way to recovery. but now we have to have epi-pens everywhere in case it happens again. if you're not a person with severe, fatal allergies, you probably don't know that an epi-pen costs upwards of $100. fantastic!

so what's the point of all this? i don't know! just another struggle. life has done a couple of numbers on me -- on us all. but what is struggle for? you'd have to ask my sister Amber Diaz. she's the spiritual guru -- i'm just the street-fighting writer. that said, i see struggle as an opportunity... when i'm not feeling the struggle of the struggle, if that makes any sense.

my child is everything. if she gets stung by a bee again i'll call 911, pray, hope. to quote myself:

"She's potty trained, wearing underpants, and quite proud of herself. She'll be a solid person because that's how I'll raise her -- whether I'm working at Taco Bell or pulling in six figures freelancing. (...) She's why I do anything. She's why I do everything."

Epi-pens are my Klondike bars now.

what would i do for an epi-pen? You name it.

As for struggle, be it emotional, financial, spiritual, physical, or all of the above, i'm game. it's made me better.

My Valet Family and Chamillionaire: How I got Through 2006

2010-08-17T03:24:00.000-07:00

Imagine, if you will, a 26-year-old newly divorced woman who has moved to Norton and Olympic in Los Angeles, just one block from Crenshaw.

Before befriending a lot of kickass valet guys from Honduras, she discovers Chamillionaire. She rides the streets in her 2001 Pontiac Grand Am blasting the shit because it's fuckin' ill.

Thus began my love of durty south, my love of all things that don't fit where nothing belongs.

I was newly single, alone and loving the company of newly discovered comrades. They'd watch me from their valet stand, seeing a white girl. When I opened my mouth to say, "Que paso con ustedes? Que van hacer con el resto de su noche?" there was initially an overall air of flabbergastedness. And then, "Pues, vamos al pool" (we're going to play pool.)

"Pues, si quieres enviar me, bueno. A mi, jajaja, pool es un juego que no puedo ganar, pero necesito conectarme con algien en este pinche barrio!"

So we played pool. Me. Miguel, Salvador, Juanito, and Manolete. It was awesome. We played pool every Saturday for weeks.

No one cared for me like these dudes. Yeah, go ahead and make your assumptions. Sure, a couple of them thought I was a cute white girl who spoke Spanish. The majority, however, (Miguel god bless his soul I'll never stop loving that man) wanted to make sure that a) no one hurt me when I walked home alone down Norton Ave., and b) wanted to make sure I had someone to talk to.

When the lights went out at the Korean restaurant where they parked cars, they'd bring out rice and kimchee for me to take home. They knew I was poor, and they knew I was alone. They knew I had two dogs, so they'd save pork bones for them.

I hope one day I can do for someone what those Honduran valet guys did for me. They saved my life, made me laugh, reminded me that I was beautiful after a divorce, and above all, they made sure I got home safely -- every single night, drunk or sober, happy or sad, no matter what.

The next time you have your car valeted, give the guy a hug... for me.

Friday Night at Frontier Ranch

2010-08-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

By the time this posts it will no longer technically be Friday night, which is exactly what makes it the perfect immediate reflection on a Friday night on Frontier Ranch.

It's not the exact topic i wanted to write about, so there may be some bleeding here and there and you will have to forgive the digressions. first, let me tell you that i just had tequila Jose had been saving. i thought it would be a good idea to mix it with soda water just as i would with vodka (the skinny bitch as Katie would call it). Ommmm, this was maybe the worst idea i've ever had except for when i was 18 and thought it might be "radical" to vote for Bob Dole (but i didn't, take it easy.)

Jose redid the shelves in our closet today on a total whim and for clearly no reason except that he is waiting to hear back from the 1000+ resumes we have sent out for him now that he is an official plumber. so he's cruising the house all day, finding shit to fix, fixing it with other shit that's lying around, and making me watch the baby on my knee while i blog or repair reputations. he's very MacGyver, perhaps MacGyveriguez.

so it's Friday night. i just realized several hours ago that it had been Friday the 13th. not too bad for a superstitious holiday. i actually resolved to stop screaming today, unless screaming is 100% called for, which currently in my life it is not. generally i scream at just about everything in this house, and only maybe 10 to 15% of it deserves real yelling. that said, probably a good 50 to 70% of it deserves some stern talking and a kickass internal attitude.

so that's what i'm learning about. the inner attitude. you think you know what i'm talking about but i bet only a few of you really do. there's the voice in your head that guides you. sometimes it tells you to stick up, sometimes to sit down, sometimes to do nothing at all. this voice will tell you to eat chocolate cake when you weigh 400 pounds. it will also tell you not to drive after drinking. this is not the voice i am talking about.

i'm talking more about a seat where your soul can choose to sit within your mind. imagine there are a row of various chairs in your mind. a lawn chair, an easy chair, an executive leather desk chair, a stool, a wooden box, a wheelchair, and finally, the crown seat, the throne where your soul sits when it rules. it rules over your senses and emotions, your tensions and the dispositions of others. the soul should not always sit in the throne, there are times when the stool and the lawn chair should be enjoyed, times even when the easy chair that faces a blank wall is the best choice.

but today i sat in my mind's throne. i made a choice. this was a choice i thought would be difficult until i surrendered to my own strength. sounds funny, doesn't it? surrendering to your own strength; think about it for a second. basically, it means (for me) that instead of letting the outside judgments, advice, criticisms, or internal whirlwinds of self-doubt, self-hatred and inability to believe in myself get in the way of true achievement. it's a kind of clarity that words don't do justice to, not unlike childbirth or drawing the blueprints to a structure that is revered for generations.

the point is, it's Friday night on Frontier Ranch and there's nothing different about the people i love and there's nothing different about me -- it's all been right there, but my soul has been switching between my mind's leather executive chair and the wooden box situated by the dumpster where all my "worthless" thoughts go to die. all i did was pick my ass up and walk it to a different seat.

new perspective, new kind of Friday night.

This Just In: Artists can use the Internet to Create, Publish Stuff

2010-08-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

It's time to revolutionize the blog and social media. It's time to meld them to the desires of the creative. Just as the Industrial Revolution was initially intended to propel industry and commercialism, it also made it possible for words and paints and other creative tools and materials to be made faster, cheaper, easier, and reach further to far off places -- more people can find it, afford it, create using it. Google is having its midlife crisis and Facebook is getting ready for the prom. What's next? What toddler roams the ethers that will rule the world next? Some can guess, but none can know for sure. But what is absolutely certain: whatever the "new wave" is, it is guaranteed to be some form of social media and networking.

The idea of the HomeTree in Avatar is starting to seem less and less fictional, even down to the way it looks. Souls gathering around one central hub of nerves and receptors aglow with activity. People still refer to Facebook as "TimeSuck" and all sorts of other things, but look what's happening -- the whole world is on at the same time, on their laptops or their smartphones, or whatever. The constant updates and feedback, even when humorous or regarding your hatred of hairbands, all add something where once there was nothing.

We are now at the point in social media history where some monk was hundreds of years ago: HOLD THE PHONE GIDEON! WE CAN PRINT THE SAME PSALM 100 FUCKING TIMES WITHOUT A QUILL! Magic. How will we use it? Will we be too scared to be the same kind of artist on the virtual stage that we are in our journals or in the makeshift studio we built in our garages and basements? Now that the world can see into your bedroom window, will you still take your bra off for the cute boy next door? Social media and the insane viral power of networking through plugins will mean the best and the worst of you will be waving in the universal wind. Can you do it?

I say fuck it. For all I've lost, it will not be for nothing.

To all the creatives out there: GET NAKED and let social media rollercoaster your sweet ass across the universe so the rest of us can appreciate it.

R.I.P. Guru -- thanks for the wisdom and the music.

Quieres que te Enseno? Pues Vamonos.

2010-08-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

after years of having known someone you think you know them, then you have a child with a brown person and they pretend they feel the same until from time to time a racist comment comes out.

worst part: i've been Latina my whole life, but no one knows until i scream it into their ear. so my baby is as white as i am, but her father, and the man i love who i would never trade for any other man is the color of a Louis Vuitton bag. his last name is Prado. my last name since birth has been Diaz -- not exactly fucking Cunningham.

and then someone i've known for years says he can't get work in this town because the fucking Mexicans are underbidding him. fine. then he says another day that a Mexican stole his tools. fine. then he says he'd do anything they do for money if ONLY it was available to him, but it's not because of the Mexicans. DONE.

hahaha/Mexicans will do anything for cash! Mexicans are the new nigger! hahaha!!! people of color should not underbid me -- hilarious! when's the movie coming out!

listen here and listen close, so close you can smell the Modelo on my breath and feel my husband's Mexican sweat on my skin, so close you can see all the black neighbors that kept me from dropping a toaster into my bathtub, so close you can see the pupils of my eyes that will tell you my godfather is a Muslim, so close, so close.

MY womb harbored a Mexican child and she is more beautiful than the whole world, the entire universe.

In a way i hope this makes you uncomfortable. white as the driven snow, your judgments are safe until you're surprised. SURPRISE!

your hate will carry you nowhere. it's more distasteful than wearing fur. beyond that, you just can't be cosmopolitan and racist. and beyond that, however beautiful your soul is, no one can see it through your retarded scope if you're racist.

would you wear a t-shirt that says, "People that don't share my genealogy are lesser"?

if you'll wear that fucking shirt to the Coffee Bean and to your cocktail parties I'll have it made for you on my dime.

if you still feel the same and won't wear the shirt, we know who you are. and just so you know, us primitive minorities make up more of the GDP than Anglos. chew on that while you call your gardener a wetback.

--La Tierra de la Cha Cha Cha siempre te recordare!

If Morrissey wasn't a celibate gay Catholic we'd be so perfect together

2010-08-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

"Only stone and steel accept my love." Oh Moz, you're fine wine.

Why am I so Angry?

2010-08-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

Well, the question has been a quest. I was raised up in a house with a mother who is of Scottish decent and a father who is Cuban by birth [as in he was actually born in Cuba, and my brother and I are first generation Cuban Americans.] My mother's upbringing held a silent tidal wave of communication -- anything that needed to be said was avoided at every turn, and the family was pretty much a collection of passive people.

My father, on the other hand, was raised by a family that was the polar opposite -- anything and everything was yelled, screamed, or otherwise doled out extremely clearly in tones that those of us who are Anglo would clearly classify as angry, or at least way too loud, way too emotional.

It is not my right to delve into what my father experienced as a youth, except to say that he lost his country. completely and without choice. unfairly and uncontrollably. If you don't know what happened to Cuba in the late 1950s, rent the movie "The Lost City." My father was shipped to the U.S. He was paired with a loving adoptive family, yet he spent much of his life in silence due to his inability at the time to speak English [he now speaks English better than anyone I know, and that's a HUGE mouthful.]

So many years of learning in silence, the death of his father in his arms, the reconnection with his baby brother who had ended up in another foster house, and working like a slave to afford university embittered him. He was angry. He had plenty to be angry for.

In my years being raised by my father, we had plenty of scuffles. Mainly because we were so similar. It was like looking into a mirror he wanted to crack -- and the feeling was mutual.

On Christmas, 1984, my father bought me a music box that played Edelweiss -- the anthem of Austria and a song from the Sound of Music, perhaps my favorite movie of all time. I had the music box until 2006 when it was destroyed when my garage flooded in Claremont, CA.

My anger is very personal, except that everyone who knows me deeply thinks that I am an angry person. I myself -- until recently -- have agreed with this assumption. But I am not angry. Yes, I have a short fuse, but much like the early years of my life listening to my father, all the things I have a short fuse about are just things that I yell about, that I talk shit about, that I unburden myself with by becoming vocal. After all, I have seen first-hand what NOT being vocal can do when you feel upset, over-stimulated, or stressed -- it's not exactly worth the payoff to make a vocally angry person convert.

I have realized that all the things that have made me extremely angry through the years have been diminished significantly. And though I have made a pact with myself to get completely naked on this blog, some things are sacred and not to be shared. Let's just say I had good reasons to be angry, and my time spent in anger felt right and served me well. It got me through high school and university, it got me through a lot worse. My anger was the cloak I threw around who I really was so that people could generally pigeon-hole me as "the angry funny girl." But I have come to realize that a lot of what I was angry about are not things I am angry about anymore, yet I cling to the short fuse and yelling because it's simply how I was raised. There's not really a lot of anger behind it, it's just a habit.

But I will always root for the violent upholder of the truth -- even though I love Gandhi, MLK, and others who believed in and practiced non-violence. I am the person people cannot believe is still alive because I simply have no fear of other humans [I am so afraid of scorpions I pee my pants when I see one but that's beside the point... sort of.] For example, when I lived on Crenshaw, more than once I came across characters I should have walked away from, called the cops on, not yelled at, or run away from at lightning speed. But I can say in all honesty that I never did, and I don't say this as a point of pride per se, but to make a point of who I am and who I shall always be. Thugs don't scare me. People who have just been released from prison don't scare me. The streets of LA don't scare me [I lived in the HOOD, the real HOOD, not the "omg you guys, that was kinda scary, Heather! Hood.]

This is a blessing and a curse. But no one ever fucked with me. EVER. Even when a guy twice my size with teardrop tattoos on his face stole my parking spot I told that fucker what was up. He could have killed me, but something tells me he sensed my sense of self, and that at that time, I'd have sooner died [literally] than give in just because he was big and scary... to most people. When I looked at him all I saw was the motherfucker who stole my spot, and nothing else.

So yeah, my anger has served me because it lets off an aura of serious dominance, and even when a guy outside a liquor store tried to follow me as I walked home at 1:45AM, I turned around and asked him what the fuck he wanted, and he receded into the background. I assure you, if I had gassed it up the road he'd have raped me. NO fucking doubt in my mind.

But those days are over. I have a child that I will protect like a mama bear, and that means choosing my battles and not tangling with fuckers, unless they are harming her.

Perhaps the reason my Dad bought me that music box was because it was the gentlest song about loving your homeland he could find. He was/is so angry and sad about that loss, and he should be. Until you have held your father in your arms and tried to tell him that this place is good because he never would have met your mother, you can't tell me you know this pain, and you can't judge it even when it becomes absurd, even when you've heard the story thousands of times.

My anger is mine, my father is my Edelweiss, and I am his homeland. God bless the anger that preserved us, and God bless the will to let it go.

The Path of Most Resistance

2010-08-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

Why do we choose the hard way even when the easy way is presented at the exact same time? I have been asking myself this question for years because I am the kind of person who nearly always chooses to learn the hard way and I really have no idea why. I have a divorce under my belt, a history of kicking, screaming, and scratching my way through college and university, a need to have 47 pets at a time because I have caretaker syndrome. I have an adoring babydaddy who while amazing and lovely comes from a completely and insanely different culture which has complicated the hell out of both our lives, yet we chose it and walked eyes wide open into the madness with our chins up and smiles across our faces.

Why did I not stay the easy road and stick with the Jewish doctor (every mother's dream, right!) I had married? BECAUSE IT LOOKED EASIER FROM THE OUTSIDE WHILE MY SOUL WAS BEING EATEN BY THE PARASITIC DISEASE OF DELUSION.

So I think it's sometimes easier to take the harder road if that makes any sense. I chose to walk a tightrope with no net underneath, but let me tell you, the net I could have had there was fraught with razorblades and hard alcohol.

If you're one of those who is smart enough to take the easy road to keep your life from getting messy, go easy on those who choose the path of most resistance. After all, the human touch and a caring word can keep a person on the low road uplifted for days.

And for you travelers on the tightrope, remember: falling to your death is better than falling into emptiness.

What is Love?

2010-07-31T03:32:00.000-07:00

I wrote a whole fucking blog from the heart about what I perceive to be love and it got deleted. Fuck the planet. Here's what love is fuckers:

Creativity Robbed from Local Woman Upon Turning 30

2010-07-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

We don't want to say it, saying it means it may have actually happened. Here it is (big breath in) ... I lost my creative juice upon turning 30. Everything I wrote was for this client or that, this project or that endeavor, never for myself, never for the sake of imagination.

Lucky for me, I have regrouped and here I am, perhaps not as good as I was, but getting there. How funny is it that life is supposed to make you wise and lodge all these insights into your brain, yet when I look back at what I wrote before I was even 20 it's leaps and bounds better than anything I can muster now?

Some would argue it's the dramatism. The punch of being young and feeling all sorts of stuff for the first time is enough to make a Picasso out of anyone, if they care to express. But when I think upon those "firsts" now, I want to vomit at having been so blind. Such is life for me. I hate for not being insightful, yet having become insightful I hate what it has rendered my words to be.

Stupidity and self-hatred have no bounds! I can remember writing poems about a boy I loved who I was sure I'd be with the rest of my life. I look at those every other year or so, sometimes they captivate me, other times I laugh at the pure teenager left there on the page, as if to say, "Hey, um, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I will make it sound lavish and painful."

Too true. We all have that fledgling person inside us, perhaps this is the same idiot who makes us question every single thing we write or say; every single action we take is judged by this hater within us.

Get out your pen, get out your paper, write that sunuvabitch away. Tell her you'll miss her, tell her you'll read her poems once in a while, but for the time being, no matter how cool she might have been in the late 1990s, she's gotta pack it up, at least for now. Send your self-hating inner-teen to rehab ... doesn't mean you ever have to pick her up. Unless you want to. If you do, make sure she doesn't have keys to the family car.

In Memory of Janie Diaz

2010-07-27T00:27:00.000-07:00

Rebirth by Lil' Wayne has made me feel like I have been reborn. Sound silly? Pick up the album and give it a listen. This is not some hopped up gangsta pushing his game, this is straight up, from the heart, soulful, wise, meaningful, brave, and uninhibited.

I had always thought Lil' Wayne was one of those people who just showed up on everyone else's albums with no real identity of his own. I could not have been more wrong. I associated him with purple drank (which I think we should all try at least once before judging) and totally understood why The Onion portrayed him in an hilarious light in their online feature, Weezey F. Baby [see video below]

DEA Recruits Lil Wayne To Use Up All Drugs In Mexico

All the funnies aside, Lil' Wayne's latest album, "Rebirth" is one amazing track after the next. From laughing to crying, goose bumps to "fuck yeahs" you'll feel a piece of yourself in here, I promise.

The best part of the album aside from the lyrics is his own musical style -- you've never heard some shit like this before, I promise. Some have said it's rap meets rock -- I agree to an extent, but there's also an untouchable soulfulness there, and though it doesn't sound like James Brown, that essence of hard working do-it-til-you-make-it and "fuck the game in entertainment" is very much there.

This guy is tapping into some major topics and telling his truth about them. So what do you have in common with Lil' Wayne? Listen to Rebirth and find out.