Frozen solid.

Sometimes as much as one tries to occupy the mind off of certain things, all it does is become a reminder that it's just occupying one's time with smoke and mirrors. When the show's over, the lights turn off and everyone leaves, it's back to reality.

I suppose I'm long overdue for a blog but for personal reasons I haven't been inspired to write anything that I've wanted to publish.

Unfortunately for me, I've been over-the-top drunk the past few nights and tonight I decided to take a break by not drinking and living off of coffee. Now I've been struck with the opposite effect of the jitters and twitches and I'm unable to sleep because my mind's running at warp speed and I suppose that doesn't help my cause for some much needed sleep. Sometimes I know as I'm drinking coffee that I SHOULD NOT under ANY circumstances be drinking coffee because I know that it will just wind me up tight and make me insane but I guess I love to do this because it's a habit I cannot break for the life of me. It usually makes for decent writing but when my mind's occupied, thoughts don't meld together like they normally do.

Since I've been back from Spain I've realized that I hate living here. I never thought I'd say I miss the city life because I hate cities but Madrid has a certain charm and essence to it that I can't find anywhere else. I miss my family, I miss the culture and lifestyle and most of all, I miss the food. That's typical of me to say but I don't feel guilty because the average person in Madrid walks several miles every day and I suppose eating sporadically throughout the day doesn't really matter. Plus, the Spaniards that are over-all skinny people don't put an extreme emphasis on beauty and thinness that we do here, especially in California. It's amazing how living where I do (just outside of Malibu) that I find everyone looks the same to me or if they don't, they get surgery to look the same as everyone else. Whatever happened to individual beauty and embracing flaws that makes one beautiful? I just don't see how a sea of Barbie dolls could possibly appeal to anyone, especially to other women who feel the pressure to sustain and maintain the bottle blonde hair and insane amounts of plastic surgeries to never be satiated with their looks. It makes absolutely zero sense and I pity any woman that stoops to the level because of pressure or for being so completely insecure she feels she has no other choice. Look in the mirror and realize that Barbie is made out of plastic and unrealistic and is really meant for little boys to learn [a very false] female anatomy and not for little girls to play dress up. I don't see how torpedo tits, fish lips, being unable to show emotion from injections and a nose too small for one's face is appealing. I just don't get it. Then again, I grew up in a Cuban-American home where our values were clearly different.

This rant was semi-inspired by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U that has been popping up all over everyone's facebooks for the past several months and I'm glad that the women on my page are wising up. I'm happy to be associated with people who think for themselves and not let magazines and TV dictate what beauty should be. The other inspiration for this rant was some program I was watching on who knows what channel (I think the same channel that Intervention is on) about young girls (from tweens to young adults) feel the pressure to always look beautiful and develop all sorts of anxiety and social disorders from not being picture perfect. Do you know how sick it is to listen to a 10 year old talk about how fat she is when she's probably no more than 50 lbs? Do you know how sick it is to watch said 10 year old feel like she has to put on make up in the morning before school so that kids don't make fun of her looks? Do you know how sick it is that a 13 year old is already saving for a breast augmentation for her 18th birthday? This world is sick. No wonder people say Americans are fucked up... We are! Our youth has gone to shit and it's disgusting.

After writing this, I'm now looking into filling out a volunteer application for the Peace Corps and spending 27 months doing something good with my life. I need to cleanse my spirit for all the garbage I am subjected to each and every single day.