My Bestie

I have not had a best friend since tenth grade. I became friends with her in second grade in elementary school. I think what attracted me to her was because she was smaller than me and she looked like she needed protection. Not that I was much bigger or taller than her but because I was more assertive and self confident than she was. Basically we were inseparable. At school we sat by each other, in recess we played together, and after school we went to each other's house to do our homework. We did have other friends but they were all secondary. When we became teenagers, we shopped together, wore similar clothes and had the same hair cuts. We both liked to dance and our favorite group was the Beetles. She was always the sensible one and I was the hopeless romantic. Every summer I would fall in love with a new boy and she was the voice of reason and caution. We told each other everything, but now that I think about it maybe I told her everything and she kept secrets from me. She never fell in love or if she did she never told me about it. She was the kind of girl who could have guy friends and they felt comfortable around her. In junior high we had to choose a major, mine was Biology and she took Mathematics. I was helpless in Math, Algebra, Physics and Chemistry. She always tried to help me but I would get board and would make her stop. I would rather listen to music, talk about boys and daydream out loud. Amazingly we never had a quarrel. We did drift apart slowly when we both moved to a larger city. Even though we went to the same high school, we found other girls that were more like each of us. In reality we were total opposites and maybe in our new environment we had found our true soul mates. 

After graduating from high school I moved to the US and got married when I was 20 years old. She stayed behind got her Bachelor's and became an engineer. Much later she came to America but to a different state. She went for her Master's and eventually married and had kids in her thirties. She has a very important job in a large company. I do see her occasionally, I think we still care for each other very much but we almost have nothing in common. 

For thirty three years I have had lots of friends but no best friend. Each time I move or change jobs my friends change and despite promises of not losing touch we always do. I have seven sisters and I love them all dearly but none of them are my best friend. 

To me a best friend is someone who likes you just the way you are. A best friend laughs at your silly jokes and comments, she never tries to read between the lines. She respects your opinion and trusts your judgment. A best friend has enough courage to tell you the truth and you have sense enough not to get hurt. Best friends always make time for each other specially in time of stress and need. Life is hard without a best friend.                          

Second Class

Today was a sad day for Hillary Clinton and for all women. I can almost feel her terrible disappointment, her intense sense of loss and cruel bitterness. The highest office in the land, the most influential position in the free world, the leadership of a super power was all within her grasp and she came so very close. But now it's all over. The opportunity of a lifetime is lost for her maybe forever. And she fought magnificently and gave it her all.  In my humble opinion the only reason Hillary lost is because of her husband Bill Clinton. The once esteemed, intelligent, educated, effective, lovable president who let his penis take over his brain (and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that ALL men are absolutely the same) and effectively ruined his presidency and made himself and his wife the butt of countless jokes and created an army of Clinton haters that poor Hillary never had a chance. Instead of standing by his side and defending him and accusing the Republicans  of framing her husband if she had left him and had admitted to herself and everybody else that he was a dirty, womanizing and amazingly stupid man, she would have the respect and admiration of most of the people that hate her today and caused her colossal loss. I am very happy that finally an African America man has a chance to be our president and Obama seems to have convinced enough people that he is capable of handling the most complicated and scary job on Earth.  I wish him well and hope that he will defeat McCain and become our next president. The point I want to make, is that again for the billionth time a woman has suffered because of the actions of a man. The reason we are still second class citizens is because people of this "enlightened" country still see a woman as an extension of her husband. Hillary Rodem Clinton lost because unfortunately she is Bill's wife.         

ALOHA

I just got back from a one week vacation in Hawaii. The first thing I noticed was that people in Hawaii drive much better and slower. Some of their freeways & highways are only 2 lanes but no one was in a great rush. Most people respected the speed limit which is still 55 mp and even 45 in some places. There were very few Hawaiians left, you only saw them if you went to a Luau, but they are not all Hawaiians they are Polynesians and Samoans. And then there is us, the tourists. Most were Japanese, Koreans and Chinese. Few Europeans and lots of Americans.The Polynesian women are sexy and the Samoan men burly. In my opinion the Hawaiian dances are boring and the food is bland. However they live in paradise and I envy them so much for that.

Yellow Straw Bag

Friday afternoon I'm driving home from work. I feel anger rising in me like a hot flash or maybe it is a hot flash I can't tell anymore. My boss had managed, yet again to insult my intelligence. When it happened I was so shocked and incredulous I couldn't say anything. But now in the car I had plenty to say. So while I'm driving in heavy traffic I pull out my company issue Blackberry turn it on put in my 8 digit pass code and dial his number. The dork answers. He has no life so he stays late Friday afternoons. I tell him I'm calling him because I'm very upset with him. He asks why. I said to him "actually I am livid". He asks "what's livid" English is not his mother tongue. I explain that it means furiously angry. Anyway what's important is that I'm going to lose my job. Not because my buss is stupid, not because I'm lazy, its the price of oil, it's the housing market, it's the interest rates, it's the recession. In a word "it's the economy stupid". I'm not making my sales goals, the corporate is not happy, I'm not thinking of the share holders, blah blah blah. I start dreaming about not working. How cool it would be? I will get up late, mope around the house in my robe and sleepers, drink coffee and smoke all I want, any time anywhere. I can watch day time soaps, catch up with Oprah and Dr. Phil. I see myself going to Santa Monica beach in the middle of the week, driving a convertible? I will carry a big yellow straw bag, I will be wearing a long white skirt and my long bleached hair will be blowing in the wind. Ooh, I'm in the heaven where women don't work, and have rich husbands who can afford health insurance. Finally I'm home, the dream is over. I will find another job, I have another 17 years to work so I'm looking forward to the $1700.00 a month I'll get from uncle Sam in 2025 so I can buy cat food. God bless America.                 

Can't Choose Your Death

An infant

Suddenly dead in his crib.

My grandpa 

dying in his sleep

At hundred and six.

Women, dying  giving birth

Solders dying in battlefields.

Car accidents, plains falling

Some die crossing streets.

By stray bullet 

drive by shooting.

By Jeffrey Dahmer

Decapitating.

A fanatics' poisoned cool aid.

Cancer and Aids.

In a dumpster, in an alley

By teen parents.

Drowning, 

In the bathtub

Your schizo mother.

A hunting knife

By your athlete husband.

A snake bite,

A dog mulling.

In an earthquake

Buildings falling,

In wildfires and mudslides.

The gas chamber,

Electric chair

Firing squad

The guillotine.

Death by hanging

Lynching, dragging

Horse back riding.

Hang-gliding, train crossing

Striking lightning.

On the slops

By avalanche

In SUBMARINES

and Space Ships.

Death by torture,

Death by hunger,

Stoned to death.

An overdoes at twenty eight.

By your surgeon,

Mercy killings

By Doctor Death.

Suffocation

Mutilation

Liposuction

Mad Cow disease

Tylenol tampered

The Bird Flue, SARS

And suicide.

And on    and on

The list   goes on.

Which one's better?

Which is faster?

Which is painless?

Which one is fair?

You know, I know

We must all go

But we can't choose

How to exit

This damn world

Just like when

We didn't chose to enter it.

 

First written on September 22, 2001

Edited on March 29, 2008

 

Motherless

The woman who gave birth to ten human beings died without even one of them by her side. Life is a bitch, too short for some and agonizingly long for others. Mom died one day short of her 90 Th birthday. My earliest memories of her are from when I was about 3 years old. I would watch her bathe my baby brother. I washed my babies just like her, washing their head first without immersing them in the tub. I would dry their head and then washed the rest of their body so they would not be cold too long. I remember going grocery shopping with her, to the butcher shop, the bakery, the fruit stand and my favorite, the European deli/candy/biscuit/powder milk shop. When we entered that place the rich aroma of freshly grounded coffee would great us. The dry salami and pastrami that mom would order would make my mouth water. Once when I was following her in the street I probably was daydreaming and I fell behind and when I realized it I started to scream and cry out for her. She was just a few steps ahead of me chatting with a friend. The first time ever I began to appreciate her was a month after I got married. Every single day I had to decide what to cook for my husband and me. I thought, boy she had to do this everyday and keep more than 10 people happy and have enough for unexpected guests that were a common occurrence in our family then. She was married at 17, had her first daughter at 19 but even at 40 when she had her last child, her golden son, she was an innocent. She loved my handsome father for as long as she was in her right mind but after getting Alzheimer's disease she could hardly remember his name. Slowly she lost most of her memory. People and objects lost their meanings for her. She started to forget to eat. It was sad to see her fading away. She was not the mom we used to know. We never loved her less it just was heart breaking to see her go even before she was gone. Mom, if my children love me today it's because of you. You taught me to be a good mom and a good wife. I have loved you as long as I can remember and will love you to the day I die. May you rest in peace to eternity. 

        

No Time To Be

To feel you exist, you must think. To think, you must have time. To have time, you must have money because if you don't you should be working & if you are working you don't have time. Everything I do revolves around my work schedule. From every 24 hours in a day I work about 9 hours & spend 1 hour commuting. That leaves me 14 hours. I sleep about 6 hours, spend about 1 hour on grooming. Every morning it takes me 2 hours to get my daughter ready for school & dropping her off. Now I have 5 hours left. I need to cook, clean, shop, do laundry, pay bills, entertain my daughter, feed the dog & find some time for myself or maybe watch some TV or read. (Oh I forgot I'm married I need to talk to him too sometimes.) Granted I don't do all these things every day but all of them need to be done sometime. I either do them & have no time for any thing else or don't do them at all & live in squalor. The reality is that I do some things some time & worry the rest of the time about not doing those things. So basically I feel unproductive, overwhelmed & at the same time overworked. I know I'm starving my mind & intellect while at the same time not winning in the great rat race either. All this brings me back to my first sentence, TO FEEL YOU EXIST, YOU MUST THINK. Therefor because I don't think, because I don't have time, I DON'T EXIST.