Birds of a feather - flock together.

I figure that since I'm without my own computer until mine gets replaced next week, that I will attempt to post some semi-decent photos of myself that are from my camera phone. My blackberry is a piece of royal junk now that I've dropped it countless times and have spilled more alcohol on it than I ever should. I'm surprised it has lasted this long to be honest... But in the process of all the abuse it has taken on, I've really ruined the camera feature. The photos used to be pretty clear indoors but now they're nothing but a blurry mess. I hope for now these will suffice.

I'm not sure where I left off in my life - or not that any of my life is really important, but I think I left off somewhere around meeting a bunch of Aussies in different bands over the weekend at the Foundation Room. I made friends with someone in Birds of Tokyo over the weekend and me being in my music bubble I never heard of them before but I guess they're pretty big in Australia or whatever so that's why they were out here - to hopefully get the same following they have there. Anyway, my friend in the band guest listed me to the Expo at the Whisky. The show was absolutely incredible. Granted I've never heard of any of these bands but I will honestly say out of all the millions of shows I've been to, this was by far the absolute most entertaining show I've ever been to. Birds of Tokyo really reminds me of a mix of Dredg, old Muse and a bit of Radiohead... They're melodic, grungy, some heavy rifts mixed in with beautiful harmonies and the vocals are outstanding. I sincerely hope that anyone reading this blog takes the time to check them out. They played a song called "Broken Bones" that blew my mind. I loved it. So, please, check them out. There was also another band that played and I can't remember their name for the life of me but they were SO much fun. They were electroclashy - like a mix of The Faint and Daft Punk. Next time I speak to my friend I will ask him who they were and I will post them on here. I really, truly hope that these bands really make it out here. They're fantastic and deserve some major recognition.

Also, my good friend emailed me this picture of himself in Inked Magazine. I like how he tells me to CHECK OUT THE MAGAZINE AND BUY A COPY and then e-mails me with this two seconds later. Nerd. Anyway - to my female readers (I know a few of you exist!) please buy this magazine, cut out this article and plaster it on your wall. He's hot, I know. Do yourself a favor and put it up there. Anyway, congrats to him! He deserves it. :)

Finally, I know I normally don't talk about my work on here or anything - but for those of you that don't know - I absolutely love my job and probably would jump through a ring of fire for my bosses if they asked me to because I love them THAT much. Anyway - today was the DISCUSSION OF ALL DISCUSSIONS. We all yelled at one another today moreso than usual over some heavy topics, but at the same time, that's what we do best: debate each other. But somewhere in there my boss said that his wife's grandfather gave him some really solid advice on marriage before he passed... This was a man married for 72 years. He said that 1) his wife is always right and that 2) HOPE that you and your partner will not fall out of love at the same time... because there are always points in a relationship where one will need to carry the weight of the other - that one will need to bend over backwards to regain that love again. without that, all will be lost, and then there's no point in being with that person anymore. I don't know why but that really hit me. I think it's mostly because a lot of my relationship with my ex somewhat flashed before my eyes. I was with him for 6.5 years - and there were many times where I was madly in love with him and he wasn't with me and there was also many times where he was madly in love with me and I wasn't with him. It's true - he and I both bent over backwards for one another in many times over those 6.5 years. We both also fell out of love at the same time and neither one of us cared to fix it - so we let go. It was long overdue - and one can only play limbo so much before their back breaks - but it shined a light on something I had been looking at but never really saw until i saw the words come out of someone else's mouth. If and when I'm ready to get in a REAL relationship again... which, at the way my life is going, probably (hopefully) never, I'll always keep that in mind. Thankfully, I plan on being a psychotic maniac on my own for at least another 10 years. I've been thinking about creating a relationship-bucket for myself - of all the things I want to do by myself without having to discuss anything with anyone, without having to hold someone's hand or have my hand held, without needing to worry about anyone's feelings other than my own.

I think doing a like of coke off a hooker's ass is a good way to start my list. But I need suggestions. I'm open to them - and anything goes. Let's hear it.

I feel so boring.

Computer update:

Dell will be replacing my computer some time next week. For some reason my warranty lists a cheaper model computer in their system so I've had to sit on the phone and remedy the issue for hours upon hours upon hours upon hours. Dell is probably the most unorganized company on the planet and it's really difficult to get anything accomplished WHEN ALL THE REPRESENTATIVES DON'T SPEAK MY MOTHER FUCKING LANGUAGE. Look, I'm not trying to be ethnocentric at all... However, if I'm in the U.S. and I bought my computer from a U.S. company to be used in the U.S. I do not want to call India to speak to some asshole that doesn't understand his right from his left or his ass from his face. I WANT TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE THAT SPEAKS ENGLISH. So of course it is absolutely no surprise to me that these assholes in India that do not read English but can read the scribbles of Sanskrit screwed up my warranty. So, this process has taken longer than I had expected but at least I should be up and running and being my normal camera-whoring self by sometime next week.

Computer Issues + RANDOM LIFE.

DEAR FRIENDS - PLEASE BARE WITH ME!

I broke my computer today. Not just kind of broke but REALLY BROKE IT in a fit of fury. I don't know how long it will take to go through all the insurance crap, so it could be a couple of weeks at most. I will be updating as much as I possibly can on other people's computers. For now, I am on my dad's laptop which is littered with viruses so I can't upload/download anything which sucks because i have pictures from tonight I wanted to post. If you're on my facebook, you'll see the ones I wanted to post on my mobile uploads. Otherwise, no web cam shots until I get this computer situation remedied. SORRY!


Tonight Sonata Actica played at the House of Blues - not that it matters because I didn't see the show but my friend Melissa came in from out of town so I wanted to meet up with her there.

I have family that has Foundation Room membership - so I called them to get me on the list as their guest to get in... I later get a call from concierge saying there's a private event being held at the Foundation Room so it's limited access to the bar only and it won't be open until 11:00 pm. So, fine, whatever. I deal with it. Instead of taking one of my guys tonight I ended up taking one of my bestfriends because I know every time I'm with her, weird shit happens. Like, really weird shit. She'd kill me if I actually posted every detail of our Vegas trip on here because a majority of the BAD SHIT THAT HAPPENED on that trip was directly involving her. So, from now on she's my main bitch to take places because of all the laughs I get from her.

We get into the bar and walk straight into the event. It's the Australian Music Expo and it's NOTHING but hot young Aussies running around like a bunch of drunks. Immediately theres a drink in my hand and I'm in the middle of a group of guys from a band... Something about some animal... and they're all really funny and totally crazy... And there was another band with them that I can't remember the name. [insert 2 hours of conversation here and a trip to The Confessional] - Some way or another, the one I was talking to got ditched by his own band... So I offered to drive him back to wherever he was staying since it was on my way back home.

My girlfriend and I are in the car and he's drunk in the back and I whisper to her to play along with me. The car gets quiet, I lock the doors and I say to my friend, "Well, I guess it's time we tell him that we plan on ending his life tonight." and my friend turns around at looks at him and says, "Sorry, you life ends tonight." This poor guy... I'm pretty sure we sobered him up in less than 10 seconds and his voiced cracked a million times while trying to ask us if we were for real. I looked at him and said, "You have 3 seconds to figure out how to get out of this car before I step on the gas and you're going to end up dead if you jump out." - i said this knowing i have safety doors that I need to unlock for him to get out of the back. Well, point is - I think the back of my car smells like diarrhea now. I slammed on the gas, cut off a couple of cars, drove like a maniac up Laurel Canyon and for about half of it (before I need to seriously look for the address to drop him off), this guy was begging for his life. Literally, he was begging, pleading, telling us he'd pay us not to kill him and wah wah wah. The point is that I don't know how I held it together for so long with this guy actually thinking I was going to kill him. I mean, I know I'm completely crazy but I haven't killed anyone yet... I guess I'm 1 foot in the door (or grave?) on that now. It's just a matter of doing it. POINT IS that I scared the shit out of this guy and I've forever left mental scars on him from that.

So after driving in circles looking for this place (note to self: get directions from other people, NOT A DRUNK that's from ANOTHER COUNTRY that has NO CLUE where anything is), we get back to this mansion his band is renting right off of Laurel Canyon. It's totally unsuspectingly beautiful. The outside just looks like a fairly large size house with big gates which is common for the area. Walk it and it's totally music-version of a Real World house. It was really awesome. These band guys being from Australia I had to ask... DO YOU HAVE VEGEMITE? Guess what? They did. I finally, FINALLY - FINALLY - got to try vegemite. The guy made it for me the traditional way - you eat it on a piece of toast with butter and then spread it on top of the butter. I was really hesitant about trying this shit because I look at the ingredients and it's YEAST EXTRACT, MALT EXTRACT, SALT, MORE SALT, MORE SALT, MORE SALT - and it smells like beef bullion cubes. Well, it wasn't as terrible as I thought but I also do not understand the palate of the average Australian if they can't live without it. To me, it tasted like a malty-yeasty version of a beef broth that had been reduced down into peanut butter-like spread. My friend wanted to die when she put it in her mouth. I'd actually really like to know the average BP of Aussie folk--- because that's literally hypertension in a little yellow jar. After the vegemite I got over it and left. My friend and I are supposed to go to their show on Monday in Hollywood and go out drinking after. We'll see what I end up doing. My life is weird - I might end up doing blow off a hooker's ass. Who knows these days.

Boxing

I think my next endeavor will be kick boxing. I've always wanted to learn how to kick box and and I haven't been able to round up friends to do this with me over the years. Well, now that I'm on this whole "Miss Independent" thing, I'm just saying screw it and I'm going to do it myself. The only thing I need from my readers is to maybe suggest some kick boxing studios in my area? I know most of you live in the LA area... So anywhere in the west end of the SF Valley or Conejo Valley would be fantastic!

Thanks!

Really? I'm not me?

Someone wrote me an e-mail message yesterday saying "shut up, those pictures aren't of you." and I replied, "IF I WAS GOING TO STEAL PICTURES, IT WOULD BE OF A CHICK WITH A SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER BODY AND A WAY PRETTIER FACE." I should have interjected that they also wouldn't all be shitty webcam photos of me being a complete hermit in my room. But, whatever.

Look, I know I'm not terrible looking but for pete's sake, if I really wanted to steal someone's photos I'd have to seriously stalk someone to have the HUNDREDS of photos I have on here of myself since 2008 (or did I start this blog in 2007?) and really make up some insane story to NOT be me. I mean, I have links to my facebook, myspace and twitter on here. I'm pretty sure that if some of you readers took the time to add me on facebook (which some of you have - and THANK YOU for reading!), you guys would see that I am, indeed, a real person and I am just as absolutely crazy on my facebook as I am on my blog. The only difference between my blog and my facebook is that I somewhat filter myself to not offend all the babies on there, including some of my Bible-thumping family. However, my filter on there isn't THAT filtered. I really am me. I don't know why I'd lie about being a hermit, or being crazy or having the sleeping disorders I have or why I'd lie about writing papers that are the absolute death of me. But okay, if some of you out there want to continue thinking I'm some fake person then okay, sure, I'm fake. [insert eyeroll here]

Another e-mail I received was from someone saying that I look like I'm getting thinner and if I'm on drugs. Well, the answer is yes, I am getting thinner and yes, I'm technically on drugs if some of you consider caffeine a drug. I suppose the high volume of caffeine I intake on a daily basis could probably considered at speed levels. As for my weight loss - I'm down about 25-30 pounds since November and fitting into all of my old clothing from when I was thin. I was never heavy enough to the point where you'd look at me and go OMG THAT GIRL IS REALLY OVERWEIGHT but I was clearly on the chubby side. I had been thin for years and years and somewhere in my previous relationship I had let myself go mostly due to being stressed and frustrated all the time. Let me say that I've never been pin-thin. I have a very Cuban body and I was a gymnast for years, so I'm bottom heavy. Even at my thinnest I've always been this way. So, the last year or two, my skin was a mess, my body was a mess and I was mentally a bigger mess than I had been even when my house caught fire, or during my grandma's stroke or even during her cancer. Ever since I've rid myself of my greatest problem in life I've never been happier with myself. It's nice to NOT hear how big of an idiot I am, or how fat I am, or whatever superfluous adjectives you can insert next to my name that are in relation to being fat or dumb. The constant belittling and lack of respect and emotional abuse was enough to drive someone to the looney bin. Looking back, I wonder how I did it for so long and I should have walked from the first time I was disrespected and walked over. Well, I learned my lesson - and never again will I ever make myself a miserable fatass because someone is directly pulling me down. If I'm going to be a miserable bitch, it will be on MY terms!

So - my point is that after all that BS, I'm out 5 months later and regained my old personality - the strong Cubana that doesn't put up with shit and will never again. I have my old body back (well, pretty damn near close to it) and I'm happy. I live by Cartmen's motto: "Whateva, whateva, I do what I want!"

It's nice answering to no one other than myself and it will continue to be this way for a long time, despite who's sticking his dick in me. The rule is either you bow down to me or I do not need you. It's really that simple. Capiche? :)

Essentially what I'm trying to convey is that yes, I am me and yes, I have lost weight. I apologize for my rant but I guess sometimes I just need to let go and not worry about who's reading.

Slacker.

Sometimes slacking off is exactly what someone needs and that time is now for me. I've been in this euphoric zone lately, almost like I've become superwoman. I literally cranked out one Hell of an amazing paper in 2 hours today. Today was one of the few times I re-read my paper and actually felt really great about it. Granted it was an opinion piece, and I wrote it from a very, very, VERY left perspective knowing that's what my professor would want. I'm wondering what her comments will be. Probably "I want lick your [insert superfluous adjectives here] vagina" because I am clearly awesome. I've noticed that I've growing more and more intolerant of the idiots in my classroom. I feel as though I've earned my place in this class as the brainy bitch and lately when someone says something dumb I interject things I probably shouldn't but because my old lesbian professor wants to scissor me, I get away with it. Sometimes being me is fantastic.
For once, I've run out of things to say - mainly because i've exhausted all brain power i had for the day. nothing seems to compute at the moment. so, until next time...

Crazy face.

Dear millionth paper this month:

Go away. You're killing me.

With hate,

Pinche

Turn that frown upside-down.

There's something about shitty weather, being hungry and overwhelmed with crap that turns me into a sour bitch. Today I feel like that sour bitch. Today is also Hitler's birthday and somehow *I* feel older. Maybe I really am a reincarnation of Hitler minus I don't hate Jews and gypsies. I hate everyone equally. I'd like to commit genocide of epic proportions and have the world to myself.

Yah, that's the spirit.

[insert drug habit here]

Apparently posting pictures like this gets me readers. Well, I have my blog set on PAY ME mode so the more clicks I get, the more money I get. I WILL POST LOTS OF PICTURES LIKE THE ONE ABOVE, SO KEEP CLICKING SO I CAN GET PAID. What can I say, if I get paid to post pictures of myself and talk about myself, how could this be a bad thing? I'm egocentric - this is my kind of gig.

Today I received a package in the mail containing drugs in it. Not just any drugs - but the kind of drugs that I'm too cheap to get from my doctor that will guarantee me not sleeping (not that I do anyway), not eating and being extra studious. So, in an effort to celebrate the last of my eating I binged on artichoke all day. I know, you're totally thinking ARTICHOKE? THAT'S HEALTHY! Well, when you steam an artichoke and then dip each and every individual leaf in a creamy, roasted garlic aioli that artichoke no longer can be labeled healthy. When you later find yourself eating a bowl of artichoke hearts that are dancing on your tongue with bits of feta cheese in a heavy vinaigrette, those artichokes hearts gain a hefty amount of fat. My love affair with artichoke is really sick. I mean, really, it is. I find artichoke to arguably be the sexiest veggie on the planet. They're not phallic like cucumbers or zucchinis, so that's not it... I was thinking in terms of looking at the artichoke and tugging at each leaf when it's steamed, biting on the leaf and pulling the meat off... It's just sexy, dead sexy. What's worse is that every time I think of artichoke I think of a certain chef friend that has a tattoo of an artichoke on his stomach and I may or may not know the meaning of that artichoke. My point is that artichoke is absolutely amazing and that if you do not like artichoke, I don't know if I like you. /end rant

30 x 24.5 x 37.

Cuban body? I think so. Thanks Cuban family for blessing me with the ability to have the curves that I do.

I love me.

I never did post about my trip to Vegas. I started writing a blog about it when I got back, but I was so overloaded with school work and family shit to do and all last weekend I was busy that I wasn't able to get around to it. Sadly, now I feel like my Vegas stories have been heard by all and it's just redundancy at this point. I know that most of you in my blogger-world don't know my personal life all that well, so I'll try to sum it up for you: The Hangover.

If someone would have said to me a year ago, or whenever that film came out, that I'd have a weekend in Vegas that was virtually the female reflection of this film, I would have said no way, no how. The person I am today and the person I once was are the antithesis of one another. Point being, I went to Vegas with my girlfriends and caused chaos of all sorts. The only thing missing was a Tiger in the bathroom. I'm 99% positive there was a police car involved at some point. However, between random guys taking us out to really awesome dinners, my inexplicably broken hand (or close enough), the battering of everyone's elbows and knees, bruises beyond accountability, time periods completely missing from our memory, my vague recollection of me running down Las Vegas Boulevard in a $500.00 dress that was sopping wet from a naked hot tub party at some suite at Cesar's Palace, security mishaps galore, stealing all sorts of mementos, pictures and VIDEO of things involving nudity that should have been burned before crossing state lines and Plan B - it was one hell of a 50 some-ought hour Vegas weekend. I was saying before how I hate Vegas and I do not like the Vegas crowd. Well, it's true - I don't like it. But if you're forced to go to Vegas for a friend's birthday MAKE THE ABSOLUTE MOST OF IT, which in essence means being blacked-out drunk, making really stupid decisions and having no regrets about any of it. Below is a picture of our room and the absolute mess we made of it. After a long night of partying, one of my friends took someone back to our room with her. We caught her mid nudity committing lewd acts.

Now, I had stated before that I had been working on a heavy duty research paper that was one too many pages long. I never did finish it until the day I needed to turn it in. Actually, I only had about 2-3 pages done by the time I left for Vegas. I kept trying to convince my brain that I needed to turn in my paper on Friday so that I didn't have anything to do when I got back from Vegas. Instead, I focused mainly on my research knowing that without that element done, there would be absolutely no way I could be able to get in my zone for crunch time. It wasn't a regurgitation paper, so I couldn't have formulated enough evidence to support my arguments without it. At a minimum, I got the research done. When I came home on Monday I had a paper that was due Tuesday that I had not even started and/or thought about for linguistics. I stayed up until 3 in the morning LOOKING for something to write on. I woke up the next morning at 10:00 am and started my paper that was due at 2:15. Thankfully it was only 3 pages and a half-regurgitation half-reflection paper. I got it done and once again, another 100% paper.

Backing up to Tuesday - I wasn't able to get back to my research paper until that evening. It was due Wednesday. What's worse about Wednesday is that I work all day, so that counts out the 8 something hours I'd have during regular business hours to write. I had to cram page after page after page after page of rambling - condensing entire periods, movements, laws and reason into this paper I had no heart or soul in. I tried to channel my inner angry lesbian for this topic I chose and didn't succeed as much as I had hoped. However, without adderall, proofreading, editing or even a basic spell check - I blindly wrote until I could write no more. It's like I had this amalgamation of thoughts in my head that I needed to organically separate into something with merit and most importantly, clarity. Well, I delivered. I'm not sure how I did it, but I delivered. I kept saying I was "writing for the A" and I did. I got it. Granted it's an A-minus and ONLY because she was a pedantic bitch and knocked me off ONLY ONLY ONLY because I had typographical errors ON MY ENDNOTES! WAH! My research, the context of the paper, everything I had done was spot-on minus some stupid shit on my ENDNOTES. All in all, I got what I wanted.

For now, here is a picture of me smiling. Yes, this smile is fake and forced, but it's a smile. I am gleaming inside because of this paper I didn't think I'd do well on because I did so much at the last minute and so much of it went in blindly. It all seemed like one long thought that actually made sense. Unbelievable. So, this smile may LOOK fake because I hate smiling for pictures - but know that inside, I really am beaming and overcome with joy.

I'm over it.

I'm sick of researching, annotating, analyzing, writing and bullshit. I'm sick of it today - completely. I'm forcing my body to think my paper is due tomorrow night at 9 pm so that I can have a weekend in Vegas and not worry about it. I have another paper that's due on Tuesday that I haven't started yet either, however, it's a summary on a linguistics article so I don't really care. I'll get it done in a couple of hours time and not worry about it. I guess I should probably focus now. Fuck this.