Teeth!

Life is beautiful.

Hello again :-)

I’ve spent a long time without writing here.

Sorry about it, but I couldn’t deal with the negativity.

For a blog called Kiki-Chan in Wonderland, I sure wrote some dark themes.

 

It has been a rough …year and a half? Maybe more.

 

It started with the layoffs, and then followed by the intensive training for the stupid new program. And finally, I got pregnant, and it turned out I was one of the lucky few who vomit during the whole pregnancy. It was so bad that I twice vomited unto my own lap because I didn’t have time to turn towards a wastebasket. I fell asleep on the job constantly, and my employer was not very supportive.  I developed anemia, and I was hospitalized twice to be treated for hematoemesis (vomiting blood). I had to go on disability. I took some probiotics my midwife recommended and I had an allergic reaction.  I survived the pregnancy, but it was hard, hard, hard.

 

We had the birth at home, attended by a midwife, just like we wanted. We had rented a little pool to use for the birth, but the water heater had broken months before, and I had made clear to my landlord that I needed it fixed and for what reason; he never fixed it. Therefore, the water was cold and we couldn’t use the pool. I had to birth on my bed, which was something I had not wanted.

 

Didi was born beautiful, alert, and crying. The midwife placed her in my arms and I made my first (failed ) attempt at breastfeeding.

 

Then, just after the placenta had been expelled, I bled about 1,200ml in one big gush (midwife’s estimate). I was taken to the hospital (again), and they gave me two blood transfusions, plus iron supplements.  I was out of the hospital in a few days but the bastards kept my baby for a while. They had started her on antibiotics (unnecessary, since she was healthy) , and they had to finish the treatment.

 

Didi was fed formula while in the hospital, so we had trouble with breast feeding. I tried to get her to latch on, but she would pucker up as if waiting for a kiss.

 

:-* 

 

But we kept trying and a month later I had it down (I thought). Except my baby was not growing; she was not getting enough to eat. Three doctors have told me that the hemorrhage could have damaged my pituitary so that it doesn’t produce enough prolactin to feed my baby.

 

So now she is both breastfed and formula fed. I try to encourage breastmilk production by pumping at work, and letting her suck whenever she is with me. I hope later I will produce enough so that I can wean her from formula and have her exclusively breastfed.

 

I hope things turn out better from now on.

 

And there is a little monster bringing joy to my life now, so I will try and look on the bright side.

 

 

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I DON’T LIKE THIS PERSON I AM BECOMING.

I feel so harassed, so … bullied,  that I can't relax, i can't trust, i can't focus on the important things.

I am losing the essence of who I am.

I go to college, and I feel so stupid,  I am so tired at class that I am not learning.

And at work, the demands grow, they loom over me, and I am turning into someone else. I am short-tempered and irritable. I try not to act like a bitch. But it's hard when the phone is ringing off the hook, and everyone is taking a loooooong lunch at the same time, of course, since they are all together in the restaurant, and they forwarded all their lines directly or indirectly to me. So by the time they come back all refreshed from the lunch I am ready to bite somebody's head off.

This is not me. I swear. This is not me.

I have started biting my hands again. It is either that, or I'll tell someone to STFU. It doesn't help. It makes me feel miserable and weak, and so terribly alone.

I feel the Void growing inside me. I mean, like in the Neverending Story, one day there was a lake, and next morning there is nothing, not even a hole.

Is it true that cubicles suck the joie de vivre and the sparkle right out of your soul, until all that remains is the shadow, as in the archetype, everything ugly about yourself?

Twice this week, I have locked myself in the bathroom to cry and bite my hands. I had not done that since I was 14.

 

I am exhaused.

I am anxious.

I am depressed.

I  feel beaten and defeated.

I am angry.

I get weepy and miserable. 

I am pathetic... 

 

And sometimes, I get  livid with rage. So mad that I pump my fists, wishing I could just punch something.

I kind of wonder whether I will get used to the new pace, the new way of doing things.

I read somewhere that if you withstand pain for long enough, your brain gets used to it, learns to expect it, and eventually will imagine pain when there is none and create it, whether you are hurt or not.

And I wonder if the same is true of stress.

Maybe my tolerance will grow, and I will get stronger for having survived the crisis. Maybe after surviving the ordeal, you are left with an insight, a truer image of yourself and of the world around you. Maybe this is just a stage in the journey, and the best thing to do is to keep at it, and smile at the old folk you find in your way through the forest, since any and all of them might be witches or ogres or gate-keepers of some sort. Meanwhile, you toil, hard working and ever polite, and at last, you will be delivered from suffering.

But maybe my body will get into the habit tensing my shoulders at work, of grinding my teeth at the mention of some people, and I will pump my fists when I get the urge of punching someone. Maybe I am one of the bad tempered brothers and sisters, cannon fodder, useless to all but the storyteller as a devise to show the hero in an even more flattering light. Maybe this is not the ordeal to be overcome, but the punishment for my misdeeds and my selfish thoughts and acts.

Drama, I know. Way too much drama.

We have joked around the office talking about Karôshi. The situation is quite far from that, so we were only joking.

But, totally for real, I am feeling burned out, and I am not the only one.

It is demoralizing, and things are not looking up.

So I will add a picture of Koko in a shoebox and Tita gnawing on a cardboard box.

These two make it all worth it.

.

Been working myself to exahustion

There are changes afoot Corporate World, and a new computer program has
been pushed on us with all the finesse of a junky whore.

We have had training 4 hours every day, while at the same time running the
business, adjusting to a plethora of crises, a move to a new building, etc. I have been working 12 to 13 hours, just to try and catch up with the
workload. And I can testify that my work schedule is not the most extreme
by far. The people with children had to bring their kids to work, and park
them in a room with TV while they worked. Fed them something convenient and unhealthy, and for homework, you're on your own, buddy. They were there
when I came in, and were still there when I left...

But it is not enough, not nearly; the work multiplies in your absence, in 
your presence, it makes no difference, really. You work in crisis management mode, trying to give the best service possible to the customers, when you have to ignore them for 4.5 hours everyday, on the good days, to train in
the new system (which sucks, btw. It creates more work for us, while not
saving us any work), and try to learn the ropes of the damn thing as well as you can, since the PowersThatBe are adamant that we have to do this.

Our job performance is suffering. My mechanics have needs I can no longer afford to help them with. And the customers are pissed off at our neglect, so we've received some flack on that side as well. 

So, after all of that, we are told that the developers complained that we lacked commitment. Of all the things to say, "commitment"! We lack resources, manpower, more training... Commitment has not been lacking at all.

I cannot imagine a more demotivating thing to say.

If I have been giving this much already, and it is dismissed just like that
, do they really expect me to try harder?

I've started having nightmares about work again.

there is a good chance that we'll be buying a house soon.

It is not what I had hoped for, but I'll grant that I have a heavy tendency toward daydreaming.

I wanted a little space for a garden. I wanted to be able to grow a little food in my own home, so if things do get worse, as I fear they will, we would be able to cope...

But, hell, the lot itself is worth more than we could afford. The location is centric, yet peaceful, so an empty lot would be worth more than we are paying. It is a bargain.

So I guess we'll be using the roof to expand the growing space.

I wanted corn, cabbage and beans, all of which need more space than I will have. Some rootcrops, like potatoes, yams , cassava... That I can do.

I've been looking into the SIP (self-irrigating pots?) craze, and I am hopeful.

I wanted a little goat, but there is no space for that. :(

Maybe a few chickens, for the eggs, later on. :)

Then, there's the plan of training a grape vine and a passionfruit vine to a trellis hanging over the roof.

And now that I think about it, there is the whole "hurricane prep" thing to think about.
It is one thing to bring all the elements of a rooftop garden to the roof.
It is quite another to try and get them off as a hurricane approaches.
And something else entirely to get them back on the roof without killing the plant.

A lot to think about.
A lot to plan.
And a lot of work ahead of us!

gone and back again...

it's been a couple of months.
they have been eventful, but the last couple of weeks were hell.
the coworker that was on leave (Neighbor) came back, just in time to be fired.
along with her went my boss and another coworker.
all of this happened while I was about to go on vacation, and part of it I witnessed and part of it I was informed by phone. So you can imagine my vacations were not as restful as they could have been.
can't say much about it. It is still an active investigation. All I will say is that I think is was a load of crap, they were framed or something.
:'(
In a WTF note, when I retuned to work, someone had left a bar of soap for me. Seriously??? Is it that bad???

I AM SUCH A MESS.

I am covering the whole Service Department Call Center right now.

There used to be 3 people in the Call Center, and work enough to keep us all busy.

Then, the current recession hit, and Fashion Zombie was fired.

Me and my Neighbor handled the phones, then, and it was difficult, but we managed. We covered for each other, and things got done, maybe a bit late, in a bit of a rush, but they got done.

Now, Neighbor has gone on disability for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Who knows when she will return.

And I am fucked, fucked, fuuuuucked!!!

To begin with, half of the things I have to do, I received no training in. They are things that can be postponed a few days, or even a week, until she returned. There was no real ( perceived) need for me to learn to do everything she could do. I only had to hold the fort until reinforcements arrived.

And so, I am stuck trying to figure out the procedures for all sorts of stuff, while at the same time my phone is ringing off the hook, and I have to keep up to date with my own share of the load.

I am making mistakes, stupid mistakes, because I am in such a rush. Yet, as the day progresses I am interrupted so often that I rarely accomplish anything. Well, I must have accomplished something, otherwise I would have drowned long ago, but every time I look at my desk, it is covered with half-finished tasks.

And suddenly, someone will ask: “Kiki-chan, we cannot find this part in the warehouse. Did you place the order yesterday when I asked you? I told you it was VITAL that it reached us today!”

And I feel just idiotic, the biggest moron on the surface of the earth, ‘cause, yes, they told me to do it, and yes, they told me it was important, and I forgot because I was doing so many things at the same time, that I can’t cope, I can’t keep that many eggs on the air,so a few of them inevitably splatter.

But maybe I am drowning in a glass of water. The other day I was talking/complaining to a co-worker, and I said I was under so much stress. And he offhandedly mentioned that there are people who actually thrive under stress. And I was, like: “Really:?”.

‘Cause I sure don’t.

On the bad days, I go home all tired, take a shower and go to sleep early. Only to dream of work again, and I wake up almost as tired as the day before. I suppose it might mean that my subconscious is working on the info learned, so that I will make fewer and fewer mistakes as I go.

Still, I don’t like it very much.. It’s like never leaving the workplace at all.

Then comes the matter of my Aide. A temp was hired to help me during this difficult time.

I don’t like her one bit.

The day she came for the first time, I took out a Tarot card to see what I was getting. Turned out Princess of Wands. My deck is a Manga Tarot deck, and the picture is this.

A pissed-off young lady, riding a tiger, surrounded by fire.

This can’t be good.

I met her, and worked with her all that day. She was hard-working, polite, too much of a Miss Congeniality.

That night I dreamt that someone had let loose a tiger inside my home. It was a horrible dream, all paranoia and fear. When I woke up, the first thing that came to my mind was her.

So, I feel we have a tiger in our midst, so I will be careful with her. But she is here to work, and I try not to be unfair to her. *sigh*

Now, another matter entirely is that Mr. Vogon seems to feel entitled to her labor. He asks me if he can borrow her for half an hour, and when I said “no”, ‘cause I really needed her to take the phone and do some work for me, he said “ok”. Half an hour later, my boss comes by, all casual-like, and asks me, all politeness and sweetness, to please let the girl go help Mr. Vogon, because he really needs her help, and he will only keep her for an hour or so. So, ok, I let her go.

She was gone for the rest of the day.

What was she doing? Reading to him.

He used to make me do that too. He gives you a piece of paper, printed extra-tiny, and asks you to read it to him, while he types. That’s it. Boring as hell, and he takes constant breaks, so he makes it last longer than it has to.

And it all aggregates

The telephone, the demands, the things I should know but don’t, the things I know but mustn’t say, the constant feeling that she is dangerous and I should watch my back, the need to know where is everyone at a given time, the delays I incur in when my guys simply won’t answer the phone, or the bosses are nowhere to be found, and my own forgetfulness, ignorance, and lack of resources. And then, the need to be nice! ‘cause that is all that matters in a Call Center, you know.

Heaven forbid, that you might sound tired.

Heaven forbid that you might sound a little put off.

So, sometimes I feel like I am dying, like there is a pressure in the center of my chest, making a knot.

I am giving it all I have in me. I have not skimped on effort.

And I feel that my effort is wasted and that something is wrong in me, because I should be able to do more.

And I know, too, that I am being willful. That a whole lot of people out there are unemployed and wished they had my problems.

But I guess that is the whole point in having a blog, ain’t it?

That I get to rant, complain, cry a bit, and shake my puny fist at the heavens.

movie review: Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief

oh, Gods, what a waste of time!
I saw the trailers and thought it seemed like a fine movie.
Of course, being who I am, I couldn't just go and see the damn movie. Nooo, I had to read the book first, and only  then, go watch the movie.
oh, it pissed me off so bad. They cut out so many key scenes and characters that they should have renamed the movie something else entirely and be done with it.
They cut out the Oracle, Ares, Cerberus, Dyonisus, Kronos, the mermaids, the visit to the Golden Gate, and most of the visit to the Underworld.
There was no commotion on the bus, no rescue of the lion and the zebra, no death of Thalia, no shoot-out with Ares right in front of the TV cameras, no earthquake, no mystery of the disapearence of Pan.
There was no mention of the theft of Hades' helm, of goat-boy's quest, or of any of Ares' children.
Unforgivably, they cut out the part whereAres and Aphrodite were screwing in an abandoned waterpark, and the trap laid for them by Haephestus, and the spiders.
Or when Percy, pissed off, sends the Medusa head to the Gods in the Olimpus. Or how the head is later retuned to his home, and his mother uses it to free herself from her husband... Who, by the way, beat her.
All of this was taken out of the story, and yet, the added Persephone in the Underwold, which makes no sense, since everything happens just before Summer Solstice, when she should have been in the outside world.
In all fairness, I think they did an excellent job with the Lotus casino...but that's it.
It could have been an excellent, excellent movie, but they mangled it beyond recognition, and I am glad they did not leave an open ending to suggest a sequel, 'cause I will pray to all gods I know of so that this monstruosity is never repeated.

Tarot

I am starting to test my hand with tarot. I bought a gorgeous, gorgeous deck, Manga Tarot by Lo Scarabeo.
I am still figuring out the symbolisms, but I think it is very interesting. The gender roles are reversed in most cards, with a female Fool and a male Justice. The Princesses-Knights are riding on mounts: a horse, a whale, a tiger, and a dragon. Princes-Pages go on foot, holding the item of its Suit.
First things first, I tried a few spreads and asked a few questions. No, I don't remember, and no, I did not write anything down. It was a simple trial run, not of hte deck itself, but of my (crude) understanding of the symbols.
But on the 4 trials, I noticed there were 2 cards that showed everytime. I was completely reshuffling the cards, so it should not happed, but there it was.
The Tower, and the King of Swords (inverted).
So... The Tower, showing a burning pagoda under a sky crossed by lightning, and a female warrior holding a broken sword over her head; talk about ominous. It warns of a nearby crisis, a shock to the system, a disaster of some kind.
I truly, truly did not want that card to show up. Specially since it can also mean an earthquake, and since we share the same plaque with Haiti, there is some talk that we could be next. Superstitious blather, but there you have it.
And the King of Swords, a paragon of intelectual achievements, a verifiable genious, inverted, so it is either telling me not to rely too much on my rationale to overcome the crisis... or warning me that my mind itself is at stake, that I might snap and go crazy.
...
Not too worried. I have always been a bit of a skeptic at heart. I am like Mulder on the X-Files: I want to believe. I don't actually believe all that much, but I very much want to believe.
And even if I were totally convinced that I received a direct message from the aFlying
Spaghetti Monster ... this was my first time. Surely I need more time to get used to the language of symbols..

Sister Haiti

Haiti, our neighbor, our sister...
You truly seem to be cursed.
Blow after blow, and no time to recover.
No time to stand up.
Just barely time enough to register a new punch in the gut, a new kick to the back of her head.

The magnitude of the tragedy overwhelms me, and I try not to watch the images on TV. Haiti has been had such a rotten luck, such a rotten deal, out of EVERYTHING that somehow this...

Slavery, war, disease, famine, floods, hurricane after hurricane, poor crops, depressed economy, and now an earthquake.

I don't know. Maybe the equations of suffering have nothing to do with past sufferings. September 11 shook the world, made us cry at the sheer amount of suffering contained in that single episode of American history. It was disconnected from everything else, yet it contained universes in anguish and horror.

Or maybe it does, softening the flesh and tenderizing the senses for the final blow, so that it can hold all the pain inflicted throughout the whole beating.

I mean, fuck!, these people were already eating mud!!! Clay cookies, with a bit of sugar and oil to make it palatable.

...

And reading on the NYTimes today, I learned of a new (old) outrage commited against the Haiti people.

Haitians have been punished ever since for claiming their freedom: by the French
who, in the 1820s, demanded and received payment from the Haitians for the slave
colony, impoverishing the country for years to come[...]

What the fuck!!!!
Since when does the victim of a rape have to compensate the rapist!!
What is the logic behind such a preposterous claim?

How much did the French receive?

And I hope to hell they are planning on giving it back. 'Cause the French have always been some of my most favorite people in the world, and if they don't make at least a gesture in this direction, I think I am going to hate them.

And maybe I have been misinformed on this point, but I heard the first international aid on the scene was sent by the Chinese... Like, really? There was nobody nearer? This thing happened on Tuesday, and the first ones to get there are the Chinese? Kudos on the Chinese; they clearly have taken this seriously enough.

Tropical Wiccan

I have for a time considered myself a Wiccan.
Not much of a Wiccan, mind you, as I am not as observant of the rituals as I probably should be, but a Wiccan nonetheless.
The biggest problem I have is the matter of location and regionalism. All hte books and info I find on Wicca are related to European pantheons and seasons. And you know, their seasons and our seasons are not really interchangeable. Their version is taught in our schools: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. They even illustrate it for elementary kids with the usual pictures of red leaves and white snow.
But, really, it is summer here all the year! The only real change is the amount of rain you get.
Our seasons look more like this: Rain Season, Storm Season, Second Rain Season, and "Dry" Season (not that dry).
Hard to pray for the return of the sun, when the AC has to be On or you would melt in a puddle.
So, I feel I have to find a way to mold my religion into my environment for it to work.
I have turned my sight to the native gods:Yocahu, Maquetaurie, Atabeira...
But I know so little about them, there are so few books...
And I know that there are groups out there that claim direct bloodlines from our Eyeri ancestors, and they practice rituals they claim are the same as the indians did.
I have my doubts.
And other politheistic tropical religions leave me feeling icky.
I am all for dancing in the moonlight around a bonfire, but as soon as you have to kill a goat, I lose all respect for you and your religion . Go fuck yourself and leave the goat alone.
And I suppose the tropical aspect of religion has something to do with this need for bloodshed. I think I read it in a Joseph Campbell book, that religions around the Equator tend to involve (human) sacrifices because in hte jungles, life feeds on life. Nothing has to be properly dead before something elsewill eat it. Thus, the idea that for life to continue, life must be spilled. Or else, the sun will not shine again.
You know, the Eyeris practiced human sacrifice too. There are eyewitness accounts of sacrifices by arrows, in which the victim is tied to a post, and a ring of dancers danced around it, and they shoot arrows at him, aiming for the genitalia and non-vital parts, to make the ritual last longer, until he expired.
Soooo not liking it!

And my question is, how far can you stretch a religion until it is something else entirely? How much can you reinterpret a myth, and a god/dess, before you are creating a new entity?
I don't want to worship Zoamel Gustav, you know.

Psycho

Holy mother of all scares!
Do I have a psycho magnet or something? Can they smell me?
Today as I was walking my usual 10 minutes stretch towards work, i was approached by an older man, I would say 50 or so, wearing a hat and sporting a walking cane, and he started by stating his desire to be respectful to me. He then proceeded to ask me if I was one of the undercover cops that followed him. I told him no. He asks: "Are you sure?" " Yes, I'm sure."
"Cause this area is full of them, at all times, full of undercover cops watching me."
"OK"
A jogger passes by, and the crazy dude stops and watches the jogger as he leaves, and then asks me suspiciosly: " Is he with you?"
"Um, no."
He then asks me if I clean houses in the gated comunity nearby. (Yes, I usually clean houses while wearing high heels, makeup and a cute braided updo.)
I tell him no, but refuse to tell him where I work, cause I am not that crazy, and hell, if i had had the iPod just a bit louder, he wouldn't only know where I work, he could have followed me in. I was almost to the entrance... (I guess that means I should start paying attention to what happens around me, no more iPod listening while I walk, which sucks bigtime 'cause that is the only time I get to just lose myself to music and think my own thoughts. It really, really sucks. )
He told me his name a few times (Can I say it on the internet? Will it violate any of his rights, and will he be able to Google it and find this post, get furious and try to kill me?... ) and where he worked. He knew that I walked this road almost every day, and gave me his card in case the undercover cops, or the federal judges that live in the gated comunity, or the joggers, or anyone gave me any trouble. It was a card of the business he said he worked for, but his name was nowhere in it. Instead, on the blank side of a business card there was the name of his mother, handwritten with huge infantile letters, some capitals, some not. He told me to call his mother, and she would get him a message. (I guess that means they don't allow him his own phone. She might serve as a filter. )
This entire conversation took about 3 minutes, and scary minutes they were. (I am not measuring it in "scared minutes", but in how long I took to reach my destination. I took 4 minutes longer than usual.)
I said good by as soon as I could, and went to my building, checking to see he was gone before entering. I had promised my youngest sister to photograph the upside down christmas tree they put in the lobby, but she will have to wait, 'cause there was no way I was going to linger in the fully lit lobby in case the creep decided to follow.

So, what should I do now?
I suppose I should be varying my schedule, so that he can't follow me as easily. But the road is a straight line. The only way I could do that is to ask permission from the people in the gated comunity to use their roads as detours. That could work.
But what I really should be doing is getting my driver's license. I stopped when I got the new specs, because I needed time to get used to the way they warped distances. But then, inertia set in, and I have not returned yet. I really, really should. I will call the teacher today.
But maybe I should also take some self-defense classes. No tae-kwon-do or any of the showmanship stuff. Krav Maga is whatI would like. Don't know if there are teachers in Puerto Rico. I'd better find out.

Paternalist Government

Thinking again about the nationality issue, about what it means to be a nation and not know it, or to know it but not be allowed to state it.



And I am thinking about the paternalist behaviour so evident in so much of our government, and in so much of our lives.

Like the student proficiency tests they give in public schools each yeaor. If we pass with flying colors, the Department of Education will receive less money from the federal government, because we don't need it anymore... So the tests are prepared, specifically, to highlight how stupid our students are. And every year they show up stupider than the year before. So there is a sense of hopelessness in students and teachers alike, knowing that there is no way they can get better. No matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead of the game. And all because we expect daddy state to make it all better, to send us some money and make the problems dissapear. And we sell for money today whatever dignity we had , whatever amount of pride we could earned, whatever amount of achievements we could have worked for. But Daddy State pays us to be stupid, and we take teh money, and become stupid.

In all fairness, they don't make us take the money. This is a local scheme made by corrupt local politicians. But it would not work if there was no big State willing to cover for our shortcomings. It turns us into parasites.

Also, there is the issue of the " political sweet potatoes", the local phrase describing a certain kind of cretin that gets a job in the government in payment for his or her involvement in the campaign of the party in power. They literally get paid to do nothing, so they can scratch their asses for a few years and pretend to work. Before the mass layoffs, it was a common feature to see a group of, say, road repair workers, two of which were workin and five were supervising. You don't see that anymore. But the leeches weren't fired,oh no! They have to work now that the real workers were laid off. There is no one left to pull their weight.

And also, the human reproduction specialists, those bitches that throw kid after kid to the world, not caring at all about how she will feed them, since the welfare will cover it. And daddy state will feed the little monsters, and she will get her nails done every week with what the babies' daddies give her for child support.

So there again, the notion that someone else has to deal with your shortcomings, that someone else need to take care of the things you don't want to take care about. Th e sense of entitlement, of deserving to be given things just because...

And I know such things, also happen in the USA. Maybe they have different names, but this rot is hardly exclusive to us. But Puerto Rico is such a concentrated country. Everything here happens with a certain intensity.



And I wish there were no older cousin to receive our hand-me-downs from, so that we could use new clothing for once, paid with our own money and earned by our own work.

Holy Shit, a whole month without posting!

No wonder I felt like I really ought to come around.

Family news, there are two new babies in the family and one of them is mine.

Not the one of the human variety, thank the goddesses in their mercy.

That one belongs to one cousin who totally screwed up with the wrong sort of guy and ended up pregnant.

But babies are a blessing in whatever fashion they choose to come so welcome to the family, little Dylan.

My cousin called me the other day to ask if I would like to be Dylan's godmother. Of course I would!!!! I would be his fairy godmother, and would spoil him like the cute, cute little monster he is.

Except, I got out of the Catholic religion at about 14, so I never made it to the Confirmation, so I can't.

Would it be exceedingly hypocritical of me if I took a confirmation in a religion I don't believe anymore, just for the sake of being a fairy godmother?

Had to tell my cousin to call my eldest sister and ask her. She too got out of the Catholic religion a long time ago, but she had sense enough to get Confirmed.

And regarding my baby, I went to the West side of the island to meet tiny Dylan and see how my cousin was doing and if she needed anything I could provide her. (A User's Manual, maybe?) While we were there, her mother-in-law came by and dropped a bag with a tiny, tiny orphan kitteh. Husband and I decided to try and raise it. It was so small that one of its eyes was still closed, and the nails were out all the time.

The cat behind her is my husband. ;-)

Back then she was also too little to know what gender she was, so we discussed a few options.

If it had been a boy, I would have called it Gateau Mocha, which means coffee cake, and sounds like "gato", cat in Spanish. Loved the pun, totally intended.

But turned out it was a girl, so her name is Tira Misu. Remains in the candy theme, and incorporates the name Misu, which is the standart name for a cat around here. And when I say standard, I mean it is practically obligatory. You would never call a dog Misu, and if you say the name Misu, everyone knows you have a cat.

Here she is, just one week after.

I don't have any more recent photos, but she is now in full battle mode, using us as stairs for the places she can't reach, playing with Kojiro, and all around being a crazy kitteh.

Crazy thing is, instead of thinking less about Simba, I am thinking more about him.

Nationalistic Rant

There is a topic that obsesses me lately, but in a minor way has been part of me since I had use of reason and it will probably haunt me forever. I suppose the problem could be the same for all Puerto Ricans, but I don’t see a national dialogue going on. Or, if there is such a dialogue, it is taking all the wrong ways about it, asking all the wrong questions.

I mean the problem of the National Identity.

I hear the argument: “We are not a Nation!” “We are, too!”

I hear them discuss whether the official governmental language should be English or Spanish.

Lately they have even dragged our flag into it, since different parties and ideologies use different kinds of blue for the triangle part. ( Just for the record, I am squarely on the side of light blue. The flag was created and used by the Nationalistic Movement long before the rest of the country appropriated it. Also for the record, I think the argument is stupid. Three versions of the same flag were used in conjunction for decades, and most of the public never even noticed.)

So , you can see, there is a national dialogue going on. But they are discussing the wrong things. Or at least, they are not addressing my concerns.

Not that they should, you know. I am only one (admittedly weird) citizen. But I don’t think that I am so unique that I am alone in wondering about the part of me that is “Puerto Rican” and what it means to be one, of what is entailed in my identification with this land and its people, with this mongrel blood, with this convoluted history.

And possibly the topic is just too large, as I am having trouble organizing my thoughts to convey my meaning….

But possibly, too, it is not quite large enough, since I keep on finding parts that add to the size of the puzzle, leaving as many empty parts as it had before.

Let me see if I can explain…

GOLDEN AGE

There is a phenomenon in folklore and literature called The Golden Age.

It refers to a distant past (purely mythical or with some factual base) that embodies the most cherished values of a nation.

Often it is a land in disorder in which a hero can grow and seek to make orderly. It is a landscape filled with perils, that threatens with death or worse, should the hero fail. It is an era that allow men and women to test their mettle and show their true character. It allows them to fail miserably, or emerge victorious, in virtue of their own efforts.

Examples that come easily to mind are : Arthurian England, cowboy Wild West, and the Japanese feudal (Samurai) age.

In our literature, they use the Jibaro mountain men in a similar fashion, but I doubt the relevance of the symbol in this context.

The Jibaro, for those of you who are not Puerto Rican, is the native mountain man, our Hillbilly so to speak. Descendant of Taino (Eyeri) Indians escaped to the mountains, the escaped black population they harbored, and the white men who raped or kept mistresses among the lower classes, they became field laborers in the plantations. Theirs was a meager, dirty existence. Their children suffered from anemia and parasites.

Hardly a heroic image, don’t you think?

Mind you, I realize that things were not all peaches and cream in the Wild West, feudal Japan, or Medieval England. They surely had their own share of thugs, diseases, and mysery. But they have been polished by age into a sheen. Stories have turned these places and eras into what they never were. And these stories shape the national consiousness in a way that cannot be measured. They transmit a sense of land, of identity, of pride.

This cannot happen with the Jibaro. The very essence of a Jibaro story is that of a victim of circumstance, a virtuous, honest, hard-working people, trapped by hunger and ignorance into back-breaking labor. (In Bagazo, one of the most famous stories about Jibaro, the lead character is booted out of his job in the sugarcane plantation because he is old and not as efficient as he used to be. He confronts his boss, and the white man shoots him. And he dies, he ends up describing himself as “bagazo” the fibrous remains of sugarcane after all the juice has been pressed out.)

And they can not be reworked into something different, because they are historically recent. Their ragged clothes cannot be fashioned into armor. The Jibaro is too permeated by the smell of defeat, of resignation, to ever be useful as a national symbol.

But it keeps on being used that way, and that seriously pisses me off!

What kind of a nation chooses for itself such symbols? Why identify ourselves with an ox, a workhorse, a whipped dog? What do we see in ourselves that we accept such symbols? Don’t we aspire to more?

I want stories about warriors fighting to make a better world. I want us to identify ourselves with the pitirre bird, a little bird so territorial that it will fight dogs, large animals, and even guaraguao hawks, in defense of its nest. Now, THERE is an image!!!!

This picture was taken by my husband. It is a very young pitirre that fell down from its nest. And still you can see the spirit. “What are you looking at?” Heh!

More appropriate to the task of being a national symbol are the times immediately after the first contact between Spaniards and Taino (Eyeri). Right there, there’s narrative gold. Two sides locked in conflict over a land, both sides convinced of the justice of their cause. A hardly idyllic age that has the potential to drag into the sunlight the heroes and the monsters that inhabit the hearts of men.

Why hasn’t it been used??

I suppose it is not a mythology agreeable to any of our past or present governments. It stinks to high heaven of Nationalism, and that, simply, will not do.

But we don’t have literature like that. Or at least, I have not found it, and I am a fairly prolific reader. I have searched for this literature. The nearest I have read that resembles what I envision is El Ultimo Sonido del Caracol by Tina Casanova, which is excellent and I would recommend it to everyone, but is so obscure that even if you Google the title, you will get only 3 correct hits. It is about our Taino (Eyeri) heritage and how it endures and lives in us.

I will stop for now. I am not finished, but I need some time to organize my thoughts into coherence.

Paro Nacional en Puerto Rico- UPR

So, the governor went ahead and performed the mass layoffs.

Thousands and thousands of i-am-kicking-you-outta-here letters in one day.

Then an egg flies, smashes innocently behind its target. But the attitude of the egg thrower was applauded throughout the land. It lifted our morale. Even those of us who still have a job felt righteous anger at the way all this has been done. I think we all wish the egg had hit the governor on his head, and that we were the throwers.

And then, today, the people went to the streets to stage a mass demonstration. All well and cool, I am behind them 100%.

But I am so fucking pissed with the students of the UPR( Universidad de Puerto Rico- Rio Piedras campus).

They feel the need to stage a protest or strike every goddamn semester. EVERY SEMESTER. It seems like a rite of passage; kids newly out of their parents house and supervision stretch the bound of their freedom for the first time. But they have to be so stuuupid about it I feel ashamed sometimes in their stead.

Like now. They went to the protest to add their numbers and help the laid-off.And they act so stupid and take the chance to commit many kinds of petty crimes, that they detract rather than add to the merit of the main protest. I saw some of them throwing empty beer bottles against a building facade. There was some tire burning. Many walls now sport graffitti they did not have yesterday: "Socialism or death!"

Like, seriosly? Is that a threat? Are you saying YOU chose to die over living under capitalism, or that you want ME to die for your economic preference?

Sometimes I despair over the levels of sheer stupidity and irresponsability that grace the halls and classrooms on this, the best university on the island.

Anyways, my husband is over there right now, working in the university. He slept only 2 hours last night, and has been working for more than 24 hours now. And I won't be seeing him soon, it seems, because the students went into overtime-stupid and decided that though the demonstration had ended (for the adults were tired already and had responsabilities at home) they were not tired at all and were ready for some mayhem. So they headed for the University.

To break some more bottles and spray paint slogans on all available surfaces, no doubt. I tell you, this happens all semesters. We know the drill.

The campus guard was ready, and with the police they resisted the students. There were rocks thrown. Eggs, of course. There was violence, and for a second there it looked pretty bad.

My husband called to tell me he would be staying in campus today. He remains on call.

Labor Woes - Cont.

It is escalating.
I get this pressure in my chest sometimes, as if I had forgotten to breathe for a long time.
And maybe I have. Sometimes I stop breathing when I feel particularly upset.
I don’t know what to do! I cannot play this game!
And it pisses me off because for the first time I felt well in a job. People were nice, there is a nice “rapport” with my coworkers. They tease each other in a harmless way, and there is a sense that you can count on them to help.
And I remember when I was working at Hell Hotel. It was a nightmare; pure, unadulterated misery. My boss hated me and made no effort to conceal it. He took every opportunity to demean me. I was in anguish everyday, because I really, really was afraid of going to work.
When finally my contract expired and they did not renovate it, it hurt economically and I cried all the way home. But it gave me such an enormous sense of relief that I know, positively, that I should have been gone from there long before that.
And this guy is turning this job now and poisoning it for me.
(I suppose I better name him; I cannot keep on calling him “that guy”. I could use his office nickname of The Cookie Monster, earned for his eating habits. But what he really reminds me of is a Vogon, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So from now on, he will be known as Mr. Vogon.)
Stupid things will set him off, and keep him in a dark mood for days, and I know Mr. Vogon is plotting against me as he plots against so many people in here.
Yesterday I was at the company building very early in the morning. I am always the first there, and everybody knows it. I live by my husbands schedule, which means I am at work at 6, even though work starts at 8. They practically open the building for me!
And I was on my cubicle working on an assignment for college. It was 6:30 or so. I was very concentrated on what I was doing; I did not hear Mr. Vogon coming until he slapped the wall very hard to scare me. And scare me he did. Pissed me off, because I almost had the perfect idea to convey a meaning in my translation, and he had made me forget it!
Mr. Vogon said: “Wow! You must get up very early! You get here before I do!”
And I said: “Yes, I do.” I was trying to remember the way that sentence was supposed to go and I had no time for pleasantries.
And he got pissed, and said: “You want me gone! OK, Ill go!” He turned and left He did not speak to me for the rest of the day, but I caught him giving me dirty looks whenever I turned.
And then, today, after I sent him some documents he had requested to his e-mail, he tells me to print those documents and give them to the temp that is working for him now. I ask if I could forward the e-mail to her, so she can print them herself, (as this is what they hired her for and I did not have time to do this right now). He went into a hissy fit, and said : “I will print them myself, then!”, and stomped off my cubicle.
And I’m like, it’s not that big of a deal! You want me to print them? I can print them! I just think that since it’s her job to do this thing, she should do this thing, and their project should not affect in any way my regular functions.


But I am not truly sorry it worked like that.

I am anxious, worried and just plain scared.

I know he will use this in his war against me.

Yet, I want him to understand that he is not my boss and I am not his assistant.

I am not there to satisfy Mr. Vogon’s needs, nor is he there to satisfy mine.

I can help with stuff, just as I help those I can, but I am not here to do his work for him.
I am not here to keep him happy and contented. I am here to do a job, and if his stuff interfere with mine, his stuff will have to take a hike.

I had hoped this temp worker would keep him distracted and away from me. It does not seem to be working out.
And anyways, I ended up printing those document, just because the temp asked nicely. I was handling the phone lines, writing an e-mail, preparing a quotation and searching part numbers, yet I printed those documents and explained them to the girl, because she was polite.

Labor Woes

I am worried.

There is a situation at work that I don’t feel emotionally prepared for. It engages my want-to-escape mode. Most of my co-workers have dealt with it, but some have been fired because of the depredations and malicious rumors created by an older colleague.

This guy has been working in the company since forever. He is firmly entrenched in his position, and has actually been ready to retire for years. Yet he remains.

I entered the company as a temp to help him on a special project. Two weeks turned into two years and counting, and eventually I turned into a regular employee.

The thing is, this guy likes to have someone to boss around, and since I was hired to be just that, he feels entitled to make me do his stuff. He introduces me to people as his “assistant”. Good goddess! The Managers of the company don’t have assistants!

Every chance he gets, he makes a mention of how “he hired me”.

And, no, he didn’t!

The company temp-hired me to help him out in a special project; then real-hired me to work in something else, unrelated to him.

Now, I don’t have the time to do his work for him. I am not paid to make copies for him, or to redact his correspondence, or to simply listen to the stupid sexist jokes he tells. (How do you say “virgin” in German? Gudentight! Got it? Good and tight!)
And he is taking this badly. He feels I am being disrespectful.

He has complained to my boss (who knows him already, so he isn’t taking it too seriously) and to the boss of my boss (who doesn’t, so he might be doing some damage.)

I tend to not complain to my boss, because I feel that being manager must be at times a bit like being a schoolteacher. “Miss! He is pulling my hair!”

He must be beyond tired of listening to complains from both costumers and employees. I try not to add to his blood pressure. I really like my manager. I have had some really horrid bosses in the past, and I appreciate what a luxury it is to actually like your boss.

And there is the thing about the sexual harassment.

They tell me that he has caused three girls before me to be fired. All the three had in common was that they did not respond to his sexual innuendos.

So three girls before me lost their jobs to this idiot because they did not document his behavior.

But he has sent me e-mails asking me out. I remember last October, as I was working on the geisha costume, he was quite insistent on taking me out for lunch. He kept telling me that my costume was pretty sexy (Ummm… not.). And once, he went as far as telling me that he thought I was gorgeous or something like that. I maneuvered and mentioned my dear, dear husband. (Have I mentioned that I love him very much?) Then he went all weepy, and said that now that he was old, no one found him attractive. I mentioned his wife. That particular conversation, I printed and showed it to a coworker and to my husband.

Coworker said to use it against him.

Husband said to tolerate it; it was inoffensive.

I should have listened to her.

I quickly went through my e-mails yesterday, after one incident when he went all belligerent on me, and searched for my own harassing history.
FUUUUUUDGE!

I don’t have proof. I lost the e-mails when I closed my temporary outside e-mail account in favor of the permanent company one. I don’t even remember what the address was, so I can’t have it reopened. I have no proof!

And now I have lost it! Goddamit!!!

Damn all these e-mail changes!

Now he has been attacking me behind my back. I have been warned by sympathetic coworkers. And I feel like a sitting duck, unable to respond, defenseless and vulnerable.

I am not made for this! My personality makes it hard for me to engage in workplace guerrilla warfare. All this intriguing behind people’s backs, all these conspiracies.

Psychopomp

I learned a new word today, and I want to share it. The word is Psychopomp.

I was googling for the correct spelling of the term puer aeternus, since the lead character in one of the novels I am writing is just that, and I wanted to see what the archetype entailed.

The Puer Aeternus is an eternal boy, the boy that refuses to grow. In mythology, he can be a boy god, such as Cupid, or an irresponsible youth, such as Dionysus. In real life, it is used in relation to men such as Michael Jackson (with his Peter Pan fixation)

Then somewhere, I read that Peter Pan is both puer aeternus and psychopomp, so I had to know...

Googling the new word led me to a whole lot of sites about a song sung by... blah, blah, blah. Who cares?

Now, the classic reference is to a guide to the world of death. The boatman. The voice at the end of the tunnel. Death on a white horse, in the Tarot card.

The psychopomp, while not actively bringing death, keeps the keys of both worlds, the great beyond and the here-and-now. He is the Master of Two worlds. And in this sense, it is potentially a great possible mentor for the main character.

Interesting.

This does not apply to the character I was googling for, but it fits another, and it made me happy. I love to learn new words.