I know someone like that...hehehe

In <3 with Home Depot.

I love Home Depot. It is my firm belief that within that store, a person can find character. Over the years, I have gone to a number of their Do-it-Yourself seminars and have learned tons from their knowledgeable sales people. I think that it takes a certain kind of person to like Home Depot.

This morning I went to the nursery there. Among other things, I grow my own herbs and salad in one of the balconies of my apartment and I was in need of some bigger pots and some potting soil. While I was there waiting in line, there was a couple in front of me. I don't know why it was that they reminded me of a picture I saw once of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey at a Home Depot.

Anyway, I started thinking about the picture and I thought that the next man I go out with has to be someone who embraces the "you can do it, we can help" mentality. A well-rounded man who can help take care of his home.

Practical skills are really underrated...

Making my lemonade.

I permanently moved out of my home and began supporting myself at the age of 22. At the time I left home (after college, after my first stint at grad school, after years abroad) I found myself in the situation where I didn't know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and so I was willing to try out just about anything. Which I did.

From my first job to where I am at now, I have deciphered more or less what I am good at and made a career out of it. I am not going to say that in this career I have earned obscene amounts of money because I'd be lying if I did; however, I have earned enough money to make a pretty nice life for myself and situate myself comfortably in what I consider to be the middle class.

At least until recently I felt this way...

In the past year I've watched gas go up from $2.20 a gallon to the $3.79 I paid today. I have watched my weekly groceries go up from what they used to be to roughly 30% more. I have seen my electric bill a certain way, seen it lowered as a result of my replacing regular lightbulbs to energy efficient, only to see the electric bill go up again for God knows what reason.

No area of my life has been unaffected by this drastic change in the economy. And I ask myself, when does it end? what is it going to take? gas prices are up because supposedly there is no gas, so now gas has ethanol and corn farmers get subsidies to use more of their corn for ethanol so wheat farmers want to be corn farmers and there isn't enough wheat (or corn) to feed people so bread goes up and animals don't have as many grains to be fed so meat and dairy go up...

And just like that, the cost of living doubles and our paychecks shrink and you wonder how to fix it or if this is temporary and if all these excuses are even true. Then you think about the fact that there are pharmaceuticals in our water. And you just want it to go back to the way it was.

Flavors of Latin America.

Until I moved to Miami, I didn't really have many immigrant friends.
Hell, until I moved to Miami I didn't really have any minority friends!

Growing up, I had a life that was beautiful but its landscape wasn't very colorful. Words in Jersey English (not the kind Junot Diaz uses in his book though) and recessive genetic traits were the norm in this little town where most families had been there for generations.

[Thank God] I am not in Kansas anymore!

Last night we were out celebrating Sonia's birthday. Y luego de la parrila Argentina, we ended up at Tapas y Tintos and had a really good time. At one point I looked around the table and I realized how incredibly cool it was that I was surrounded by cool, young professionals who came to look for a different situation and found it. It was also cool to hear my Dominican Spanish in a backdrop of Argentinian, Venezuelan, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Honduran and Castillian Spanish. It kind of made me regret not speaking Spanish more often than I do.

I thought of the warmth that we as a group share regardless of our ancestry. The kisses we use to say hello, the nicknames, the gestures, the loud laughter -all parts of our different cultures, the things that make us a different ethnic group.

I like it.

[But I will NEVER like rice and beans!!!]

Happy 4:20!

fun stuff :)

Happy Birthday Sonia!

i love u!

xox-

ana :)

Tonight!

It really is the devil...

As if my seven-word-named coffee addiction wasn't enough...
I have now become addicted to the compilation CDs they sell at Starbucks.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

books and books.

A while ago, my friend Bviz recommended the book "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." Even though I was still in my financial book reading kick, being the nerd that I am, I ordered it and started reading it upon arrival.

I read 19 pages and I didn't like it.
I went back to Suze Orman and her infinite financial wisdom.

Months later Mr. Junot Diaz wins the Pulitzer for "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."

Well, despite the fact that I kinda sorta hoped that sooner or later I would be the first Dominican writer to ever win a Pulitzer (that has always been the Oscar I give thanks for in the shower using a shampoo bottle), I was super proud that I can speak of a contemporary mainstream hero of the land of my forefathers, who is not a baseball player.

I even came home and picked up the book again.

After carrying it around in my bag for like a week, I finally started reading it again. The problem is that- again- I don't like it. And again, I am stuck in page 19 though this time I am trying to read more like a scholar than a regular Jane who just wants to read.

I feel guilty for not liking it. It makes me feel like I have bad taste and I DO NOT HAVE BAD TASTE (except when it comes to men apparently). It also makes me feel like I'm being condescending to someone who deserves my respect. I should boast about this book like I did of Mr. Diaz's feat of winning the prize.

Once I am done here, I am going to go and read some more.
I hope it grows on me...

----

PS- I hope you filed your taxes!

secrets.

Every Sunday, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is read Postsecret. Sometimes, I take some of these secrets and post them here because they ring true or could simply be one of my own. It's kinda funny how for someone who would rather "not go there," I have manged to share quite a bit.

Catharsis is good.

Last week, I received a comment from a reader telling me that he hoped I was just taking a break from writing. I saw it and I felt a little uneasy because I couldn't come up with a really good reason why I had stopped writing in general. I had not written a blog post since January, my manuscript has been on hold since February, and my journal has far too many blank pages.

Yesterday I posted a secret I saw in Postsecret last week: "When you stopped loving me I stopped painting." I even gave it a title: "for me, it was writing." Then I shut off my computer and went on my merry way.

Then it came to me.

I stopped writing because he didn't love me.
I stopped writing because I had to learn to not love him.
I stopped writing because I forgot who I was without him.

After almost 4 years, I ultimately lost the guy. And not only did I loose the guy, because of this loss I stopped doing the one thing I've always truly loved doing: writing. I let the last thing I ever wrote be an angry goodbye email that I wrote because I had no other choice. I let it be something I am not proud of.

I am going to change that. I already lost enough. No need to loose myself in the process.

for me, it was writing.