Big Red

Breathless as I write about the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen in this concrete dungeon, cynical though I can be about this place, tired as I am of the nicotine that I was captive to, listening to the opera that I love and tried to ignore for 3 years; I want to describe the most beautiful painting that my eyes have just had the privilege of setting on. As I was sitting outside slightly annoyed at the neighbors nagging incessantly about this and that to their spouses, children, dogs, and whoever is willing or forced to lend an ear, I tuned out and looked up. It was that simple. I looked up. Gliding across the sky was an airplane with it’s landing gear ready for the ground. There was a sliver of orange piercing the belly of the plane; a reflection of a setting sun. As the plane split through the sky, I noticed the magnificence of what artists have tried to recreate for centuries. The sky looked like it was on fire the lower my eyes went. The colors were breathtaking, and as my eyes made their way up, the colors went from fiery to majestic. Magenta faded into blue, then to turquoise like the color of the ocean here in Miami, then to white, then to royal blue, then to indigo with the first traces of the stars beginning to wink their routine hello. Shooting through the sky were clouds that looked almost appetizing like cotton candy, twirling about playfully, soaking in the last rays of sunlight. The sharp palm tree silhouettes, barely distinguishable in between rooftops, the electrical wires winding their way through, tiny me writing a tiny story, in a tiny world where my toes are the size of half an atom compared to the ginormous painting created by a setting sun.

Is Here

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.

Pope John XXIII

Therapy

Usually, rainy weather makes me sad. Today for some reason, I feel like a cotton ball.  I woke up this morning with my book resting on my chest. Both of my hands were holding it in place. I know that I really like a book when I fall asleep with it, and cuddle with it. I know, I’m a weirdo but this is what happens when I’m lonely and I am satisfying my addiction. I love my books, so I cuddle with them.

Amanda and I enjoyed a wonderful night minus cable and internet. Because of this storm, our electronic blah blah blah was acting up. Amanda and I just sat around in the room trying to pretzel ourselves.  I got stuck and fell forward and she laughed at me and took pictures. I would rather not post them up, they are pretty ridiculous. I laughed too, which resulted in me not being able to breathe. After we got bored of this, we tried to have a reading date but that was unsuccessful because we kept on playing small pranks on each other and goofing off.  Finally, she hid in the living room to talk to her boyfriend, and I went to France. I drifted off to sleep.

Le lettere sono sempre bruciate

Non e comi i film

Ci hanno nutriti sulle piccole bugie pietose

Je vous verrai dans la prochaine vie, peut-être

Un coeur qui est rempli comme une décharge

Cada vez viene, me come viva

Trato de comportarse, pero me come viva

Entonces declaro una vacaciones

Duerma, el deriva lejos

Così ho succhiato la luna

E ho parlato anche presto

E quanto è costato?

Sono stato fatto cadere dai raggi lunari

Ed abbiamo navigato sulle stelle cadente

Je vous verrai dans la prochaine vie, peut-être

Exploding Vents

Oh boy! What a story, what a story. So after sitting at my desk, feeling funny from a lack of reading, I went outside to enjoy five pages of my new favorite book (I think that I say that after every good book that I start reading). Just as I was disappearing into the world of Dumas, this well dressed man walks into the little indent in the wall next to me, whips out his wiener and started peeing on the wall. Usually, I would have cared less if the said man was more than 15 feet away from me, and probably would have thought it quite funny. But no, this man was within arms length of me, and not only was he peeing so close to me that I could smell it, but he placed his cigarette so close to me that it burned a small hole in the back of my dress. Infuriated, frustrated, and everything else in between, I jumped up and said “excuse me sir, there is a restroom inside of the office!”, he ignored me. This angered me even more, and I stormed inside and told Laura, and asked her if I was allowed to throw the coconut sitting on her desk at him. Of course she said no because it would jeopardize my position. He had the audacity to come back into the office and ask how much longer it would be until his name was called. My face was boiling hot, and I had to control myself from yelling at him. When he looked at me, however, I stuck my tongue out at him. RAWR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dumas

Currently reading The Last Cavalier, Dumas’ last written work. Finally, I have found a book that satisfies all of the qualities that I look for in an amazing book. Beautifully written so far. I know that I will be very sad when it is over.

Grass

I am so sick! I don’t know how this happened. One second I am perfectly fine, eating flan and strawberries, the next thing I know I am hunched over the toilet saying hello to everything I have eaten over the last couple of days. My nose is stuffy, and my throat is scratchy, and my eyes are watery and itchy. It hurts to breathe!

So, Saturday night, Amanda and I snuggled up and watched Paranormal Activity. Since we are both chickens, we were laying there covering our ears and jumping behind each other at every scene that looked even a little bit scary. I still have nail marks on my arms where she grabbed me. Well, in between the screaming and the laughing a tiny beetle decided to fly on her head. She must have jumped like 5 feet in the air, slapped me, then fell off of the bed taking the plate of crackers and ham with her. Another reason to laugh until our stomachs hurt. After the scary movie, we decided that it was bed time. She lay on her bed and I lay on mine. My mind was running a marathon, as always. I leaned over: “Amanda! Are you still awake?” I whispered, tapping her on the head. “Huh? (mumble, mumble.)” She turned on her side, turning her back to me.

“Amanda! Wake up!” I had the covers pulled up to my chin, and my feet safely tucked in at the other end. “What!” She mumbled. “Amanda, I have to tell you something important!” I didn’t really have to tell her anything, I was just scared, and it was dark in there, and the dresses hanging in the open closet were making funny shapes, and I was scared of opening my eyes again. “What, Katryna.” She mumbled, still half asleep. I thought about something important enough that would get her to wake up enough to talk to me. “I’m scared!” I blurted.

“Go to sleep, Katryna.”

“I can’t”

“Okay, then close your eyes and count.”

“I can’t!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s dark and I’m scared.”

“Scared of what? I feel bad for your future husband, he is going to have to put up with you after a scary movie.”

“Ghosts.”

“Don’t say that word! I’ll get scared!” Aha! Now I knew how to keep her awake.

“Amanda, did I ever tell you the story about this house? About the ghost.”

“Stop it!”

“It’s a good one. This girl who waited too long for her husband back in WWII, killed herself in this room when she got the letter saying that he died at war.”

Great, I just succeeded in scaring myself, again.

“Really? Was she pretty?” I let my imagination go.

“Really pretty. She was a singer. Sometimes, you can hear her singing about him. Their favorite song, the one that they had danced at their wedding. People have seen her roaming around the house, dressed in white. The rope still around her neck.” I was talking complete nonsense, and yet I was scaring the crap out of myself. “This is why so many people have moved out of this house so quickly.” She was sitting up now, her hair a tousled mess on her head. “Yeah, and …” I couldn’t stop talking. I love telling stories, and this one carried me away. By the end of my ridiculous tale, Amanda was sitting up in bed staring at me through the dark, her mouth open. “Amanda, one more question…”

“What?”

“Can I sleep with you? I scared myself even more.”

” I can’t sleep.”

“What now?”

“How about we watch another movie?”

“What do you want to watch?”

“The Hills Have Eyes.”

“Okay.”

We didn’t fall asleep until the sun started coming up. By the end of the movie, we were at our wits end. We ended up sitting under the covers, asking each other if the other was still awake until we drifted off to sleep around 6am.

OOF!!!

Relaxing Friday night watching movies and eating more flan than should be legal for one person. I fell asleep watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon without subtitles.  Well this is going to be a picture post with random pictures of people and…I dunno!

Man sleeping on the train!

Night time Miami

On the cruise

Vicky and I

D= Terror!!!

Jordan and I

Vicky

No Makeup D=

Malainie and I

The funniest ugly picture ever!

Amanda falling!

One night with Neyleen and friends

Gardenia

The full moon has never lived up to it’s reputation for me more so than it did yesterday. Here is what happened:

I don’t remember waking up yesterday. I only remember my walk to the metro station. The metro ticket machine gave me five dollars when I bought a two dollar train ticket. The train that I was on stopped 5 times for no reason in particular (not that weird, but still a little strange.) I made it to work and ran off to Starbucks for my usual venti 3 pump white mocha iced coffee. The girl working the register messed up my order so she gave it to me for free! I gave her the 5 dollars that the metro gave me for free as her tip.

When I walked into my office, the ladies were in their usual morning gossip spot, talking about the difference between halls and other cough drops. I had to squeeze past the perfume posse in order to make it to my seat. Laura had left about three guavas at work the night before, and did not want them anymore. Carmen’s favorite fruit is guava so she was the first to jump up and take Laura’s offer. She was offering me a bite when, after 2 bites, she saw a little white worm crawling around the pink middle. I pointed it out to her, and once she set eyes on this little thing, she quite literally turned green. All of our jaws dropped and Carmen ran out of my office and into hers. We could here the lysol can pushing out its last few sprays of Carmen’s favorite cure all. I still don’t understand why she sprayed everything after the maggot incident, but it was really funny.

Sometime after lunch, Stephen sits down at his desk and realizes that his phone receiver was missing! He was so confused, and walked into our office up front and accused us of playing a mean prank. Laura and I looked at each other innocently, and rightly so! Finally, one of his old clients from earlier in the day walks in with Stephen’s phone receiver hanging from a string around her neck. She was obviously a little crazy. This became obvious, at the expense of mine and Laura’s eyes, when she leaned over the counter, and two floppy breasts plopped out of her shirt and onto the counter. Carmen came around the corner at that very moment, and gagged very loudly. Laura screamed and I gasped then dialed Stephen’s extension.

On the way to the mail room, I ran into a very old friend that I have not seen in ten years. I was crossing the street at a pedestrian cross walk when this white car didn’t stop in time and hit me. It wasn’t bad at all, or dramatic; just a charlie horse, really. The person driving runs out, and starts apologizing right away, and I was about to snap at them when I looked up and saw my best friend from second grade. What was almost a negative situation, turned into a very funny happenstance meeting. We had a cup of coffee and went our separate ways.

I ran into Malainie at the metro station after work.I decided to hang out with her as I haven’t seen her in a long time. We went to Miracle Mile and people watched for an hour before she started feeling nauseous. We drove back to her house and hung out there for a few minutes before she drove me home…sort of. When we were in front of my house, her boyfriend called and told her to drive all the way to kendall to pick him up. She didn’t want to drive alone so I offered my services as part navigator part passenger seat driver. For anyone that knows me, you know that this had a lot of potential to turn out disastrously. Well, we got lost a couple of times, but all was well until we ran out of gas. Thankfully there was a gas station like 3 feet away and we were buying candy when the car gave up. We put some gas in and continued on to her boyfriend’s mom’s house. I met his little brother, Reno who is really cool. I taught him how to draw a cube, and we played with leggoes for an hour while Malainie talked to her boyfriend’s mom. We left and made it back to my house at about 11.

Vicky surprised me and picked me up. We went to her boyfriend’s house and played music, smoked, watched 2 hours worth of ridiculous 80’s montages. After this, she drove me home and we talked in Spanglish about art, and highschool funnies. Once at my house, we ate 3 massive bowls of cereal, watched Aladdin, then said our goodbyes. I forgot to give her her sorpresa though.

This post took place on Wednesday, not Thursday.

Paperclips

So, it was back to work day for me today. Woke up at 8:30 as a result of some funny dreams, thought that I was late, took a hot shower, brushed my teeth; usual morning stuff all in a rush. I run out of the house and locked my keys inside. I remember thinking that it was strangely cool outside for Miami, and saw that both cars were gone. My neighbor walks outside and mentions how strange it is to see me up at 9 am. I looked at her and asked her what time it was, she said 9 am again. She has a key to my house, so she let me inside. I sat on the couch, writing and drawing for an hour and a half, then walked to the metro station. As usual, the viejos stared and hissed and blew kisses and for once, I didn’t feel anger, or annoyance, amusement,  or much of anything, really. I just tuned them out and listened to my iPod, sitting in the train, people watching, enjoying the beautiful Brickell scenery against a brilliant Miami sky, wondering what my next book was going to be. Typical.

Walked into the office at exactly 11 15. The ladies were having their usual morning gossip session in my office when I came in. My desk looked like it did when I left it, the lighting seemed different though. Laura and everyone else was commenting on how light my hair had gotten, Carmen was talking about her eyeball, Laura was pretending that Carmen’s eyes looked swollen, Genie was talking about her fear of being stuck in a hospital when she goes to New York (she said that something always happens to her when she goes to NY), and I was spacing out while Stephen passed out espresso shots.

At some point in the day, when I had finished 10 days worth of rejections, I got bored. My hands started looping paperclips together, and before I knew it, I had the longest paperclip chain in boredom history. When Laura got back from her cigarette break, and I had no more paperclips to loop together, I started writing again only to be interrupted by a flying eraser that missed my eyebrow by an inch. I look over at Laura holding a bundle of papers together, and my paperclip chain looped around her wrists. “Katryna, we talked about this.” She laughed, I laughed “oops.”

After work: Remembered that I had forgotten to eat today. My stomach growled violently, and I realized that I had been running on coffee and coffee alone all day. I tried to eat a piece of fruit but I couldn’t swallow it, so I drank water and lie in bed for an hour before showering and sitting outside with Amanda, watching the unexpected rain. Malainie surprised me by popping up at my house. Amanda went inside, and Malainie and I sat on the porch and talked about her boyfriend, work, and music. She left, and I tried to fall asleep but it was useless. I went back to writing, and drew a few things here and there, drifted off a couple of times, and dreamed about a cherry tree with happy faces growing where the cherries should have been. I’m getting a happy face tattooed on my wrist sometime soon. I’m nuts, but I know that I won’t regret it.

Work at 8 30 tomorr—or today. Goodnight world!

Rafael the Bus Driver

A typical day for Rafael. He likes tuning in to his passenger’s conversations. Since he drives the same route to and from the Barcelona airport everyday, he doesn’t exactly have to pay attention to where he is going; kind of like playing the piano and having muscle memory. Rafael was born and raised in the heart of Catalunya so it was really funny for him when he heard an American trying to teach another American how to speak Catalan. He liked listening to this pair because they were the only two people on the bus that were laughing. When one of the two laughed, the other laughed harder. Rafael wondered what “grajo” meant.