Where's the rainbow?

Seriously... it keeps raining and raining but I see no rainbows... metaphorically, that is. Funny thing is that I love the rain. Could be cuz I live in the desert and the city thirsts for water. Cloudy days and a whiff of the desert rain give me the warm fuzzies. However, when rain pounds down on my life, well, that's a completely different story. It seems like I can't get a break. Ok ok... I also have trouble seeing the "good things" in my life when I'm blinded by all the rain. I've always heard, "You're so strong for enduring so much." Hmm... am I? I think it's only because I have to keep swimming so that I don't drown in the rain. I keep looking for that rainbow that doesn't seem to come through. I wonder if there's a pot of gold at the end, too? If the universe is listening, I'd love tons of happiness, an amazing job, and ease for a change!

Table Scraps

Why is it that some people think it's ok to just hand the person they're dating table scraps? What do I mean by that? Well, when they think that just giving you enough to keep you around is doing their best with the relationship. As if one text a day saying "Thinking of You" is enough to hold me over. Come on now! What happened to being wooed and having romance. Where are those people? Oh yeah... it's just me and that's not as fun. Well, only when I get to splurge on things I love. It seems like I end up with the same type of person. The type that doesn't think they should make an effort to show affection or love. That their mere presence is enough to take care of all of the ailments. Wow... I need to change my sense of direction and declare that I need and want more. I want someone with ambition. I want someone that puts me first from time to time and doesn't keep me on the backburner cuz they think that's ok. I want someone who will hand me happy surprises and spoil me. Cuz seriously, I don't think I've ever been spoiled by anyone. I want someone to grow with in all aspects. I want someone whom actually respects what I do and wants me to succeed. I wants someone as in love with me as I am of them. I want someone to make the travel plans for a change. I want someone to laugh with, feel comfortable with and can carry an intelligent or fun conversation with. This time, I want someone who's educated and understands the trials of college life. Oh, and let's not forget, I want someone who's honest and knows and goes after what they want. Table scraps aren't it for me. It's just not my cup of tea.

Best interest of child

On Friday, my unemployed roommate (soon to be ex-husband) decided that it was time for his son to meet his girlfriend and her son. Hmm... is that in the best interest of my son?? My roommate and I are still living in the same household, we're still legally married and he's UNEMPLOYED (going on 11 months, mind you!). First of all, he's teaching our son that it's acceptable to be disrespectful to women AND that his teenie lil head makes all the decisions for him. AND to top it off, my son was upset and told me EVERYTHING. He said, "Pops went to kiss her on the lips but she pushed him away so he kissed her on the cheek." What's wrong with this man?? He isn't only being inconsiderate to me BUT to his own son. Seriously, my attorney needs to find a way for me to legally evict this imbecile. It's no wonder his 1st and probably 2nd wives hate him, too.

Taxes kicked my (__|__)

After waiting around for one stinkin' form, I finally got to go do my taxes. Typically, my roommate (soon to be ex-husband) would've file 'em for us but this year I began working (a 2nd job) through my own design company and wanted to file "correctly". Well, now I'm wondering if I should've just kept TurboTaxing. First of all, it pisses me off that the IRS is so sexist! They put my roommate as head of household! WTF! I'm the one who's making the bucks here! He's unemployed!!!!!!!!!!! THEN, the first lady we sat with kept directing questions to him and making tons of mistakes. She kept assuming he was the breadwinner. She rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. Needless to say, I requested a second opinion from the other H&R Block person because the first idiot wouldn't hear of anything having to do with my company. She didn't want to do her fkn job! So, I went over to the other lady and guess what... she listened. So, I got to add my web, internet, stylus and so on expenses. Aside from all of that, I got stuck with a $450 bill! I won't be filing with H&R Block again nor will I refer anyone to them. Anyone know of a visual arts knowledgeable accountant? Ugh...

What are you passionate about?

A couple of days ago, my co-worker, Dana waltzed into my office. Luckily it was during my down time and she caught me sketching a bird. She merely glanced at it, as she has with other sketches I've made. She asked if I was bored. Technically, I wasn't since I was sketching. It tends to make the time go by faster, at least for me. If it's not art related then she'll find me reading... again, on my down time. I do work! Really I do!

The point is, I turned and asked her,
"What are YOU passionate about?"
D:"What do you mean?"
Me: "What do you like to do? You obviously don't like to read." **She won't bother reading fwded jokes**
D: "I go to school."
Me: "So, you like going to school?"
D: "No"
Me: "So, if you die tomorrow, what would you feel you would've missed out at?"
D: "I gotta raise my girls first"
Me: "Then parenting is your passion?"
D: "No... I don't know..."

Dana walked out of my office and all I could think at that moment was, "Wow" as I shook my head. It made me reflect on the question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Art has always been a part of me. I'm not sure where I picked up on drawing since I wasn't taught the fundamentals in art at the elementary school level. There are so many things I'm passionate about that revolve around the art world but there are also things I'd love to learn that have nothing to do with art. I like manipulating html code to enhance the beauty of the page. Hmm... I guess it has to involve art in order to want to learn. Someday I'd like to go to culinary school. Again, it's another form of art since the final product becomes a tasteful masterpiece. I'd love it if there was a way to split myself in many ways in order to learn and consume more knowledge about the world.

Copyright infringement?

I ain't gonna lie, I read about this yesterday but I don't recall which site it was on. It turns out the Associated Press wants their share of the glory on the success of an art print. As an artist, my initial sentiment was that of being upset at the Associated Press for wanting to share in Shepard Fairey's royalties. I was under the impression that as long as 10 % of the original image was changed then that was o.k. However, since I love photography, too, I attempted to see this debate from the photographer's (Mannie Garcia) perspective. As a photographer, I'd be pretty darned pissed if one of my photos was used as a basis for someone else's success. As an artist, I'd be ticked at myself for not thinking of doing the same thing the print artist did in the first place. I do love screen printing and the print making so I'd definitely kick myself for not coming up with the design.

Technically, the print of Obama isn't identical to the photo because it's not a duplicate photo. The photo doesn't show blue highlights or red shadows. The print doesn't include the details of the flag in the photo's background. The print is vectorized, which means it's made up of clean lines. I'd freak if Obama stepped out of the print poster because normal humans don't have that skin tone! So, I did very minimal research and came across this article "Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey: A critique by artist Mark Vallen." Basically, Fairey's history indicates that he doesn't have original ideas but "borrows" ideas created by other artists. He tweaks the original image to re-create it but when put side by side, the images resemble the original artwork. Then I came across a question on About.com which made more sense to me than anything else: "If I change 10 %, isn't it a new image?". Basically, as an artist, one can use 10 % of an original piece and then manipulate the 10 % to create an original piece of art.

So then, my brain wandered off onto Andy Warhol's Marylin Monroe prints. What about them? They were also based off an original photo, right? So, what makes the Obama print different from the Marylin Monroe print? Basically, Warhol used multiple prints of Marylin Monroe to create one full piece of artwork. The outline of her being is in the piece, but the colors used aren't indicative of how Marilyn Monroe truly appeared. This brings me back to square one. So the image of Obama wasn't an original idea. The fact is Fairey manipulated the colors, vectorized Obama's face, added type and created a print... those were all original ideas. If I decide to create my own artwork based on our President, will our President come after me for royalties when it becomes a successful piece of art because he didn't give me rights to use his image??

A new revelation at one time...

It seems that when in time of reflection, I find myself picking up books that have a spiritual context to them. My first life-changing book was "The Celestine Prophecy" written by James Redfield which follows the journey of the main character through nine insights. A friend of mine, Cristina, suggested I read it and was practically throwing it on my lap. Granted, the book belonged to her sister and I had 1 night to read it all, basically because her sister had no knowledge of its disappearance. Surprisingly, it was also the first time I read through and entire book in 1 night without wanting to put it down. The Celestine Prophecy introduced me to a new way of looking at life.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic which meant it bestowed its fears and ideals over my young life. I always remember listening to my mom say, "Dios te va a castigar si haces eso." (God will punish you if you do such a thing.) However, "Ve a confesarte el Sabado," (Go to confession on Saturday) meant that whatever sins I'd made against God were forgiven. Hence, a clean palette to start from again and again. I became a devoted Christian and attended mass every Sunday, joined the church choir, became a Catechism teacher and assisted with church retreats.

Did all of that make me a better Christian? Not that I recall. What it did was open my eyes to the other side of being a superficial Christian. I didn't get paid to do any church activities. Everything was on a volunteer basis. Being fresh out of high school, I was looking for gratitude for volunteering my time to the church. That never happened. What did happen was that I was told I wasn't good enough to sing in the choir, demeaned at catechism meetings because the volunteers weren't doing their "job", and I got a chance to see that the priest only showed up to eat at retreats. Oh, and by the way, it's the same priest who claimed children shouldn't be welcome at mass.

Needless to say, when I was done reading The Celestine Prophecy, I embraced the idea that the Roman Catholics were merely seeking not what is best for its congregation but what's best for the sect. Embracing the idea that God is everywhere and not trapped in a facade built by a greedy, one-sided force was uplifting. Cristina and I decided to test the third insight: A matter of energy. The third insight basically states that there is no such thing as coincidence. That everything happens for a reason and we should be prepared for it. In order to test this idea, my friend and I decided to say out loud that we would like to meet someone from France within the next few hours. Living in El Paso, that little wish was a far fetch. We drove up to Scenic Drive up on the mountains and took a stroll out to gaze at the surrounding city. We quickly noticed a group of people who'd locked their keys in the car and were having trouble retrieving them. After offering our assistance, we heard an accent in response. Yup! It was a group of French travelers! So, we decided to test it again. "We would like to see someone from middle school that we haven't seen since." Sure enough, we drive to the other side of town and we bump into an old friend. Granted, it's El Paso and seeing that person could've happened at any time. However, it happened that same day. The point is, this book changed my outlook and at times I forget that it did. Sometimes, I'd like to go back to that day when I read it for the first time and I realized there was more to life and the connections we have with people. **BTW: We weren't able to help the French people retrieve their keys since we knew nothing about breaking into vehicles!**

Expectations

Living up to people's expectations can be exhausting. Sometimes I wouldn't mind being labeled as "crazy" by a psychiatrist so that I could behave like I'd like to behave. People would just claim that I'm crazy and wouldn't think any less or more of me. I was reading "Veronika Decides to Die" by Paulo Coelho which describes the crazy folks scenario. Veronika acts on instinct and will without hesitation, at least towards the end of the story. Real life isn't so. It isn't ok for a mother to crave a break from her child. It isn't ok to want to remain in bed an entire day when there's a child in need of attention. It isn't ok to act promiscuous when you've claimed to be happily married. No one talks about the trials of marriage and how difficult it is to maintain a happy facade. I have to pretend to be the perfect wife, the amazing mother, the favorite daughter and best friend. Well, I'm done pretending. I am none of those things. I have moments of failure, fatigue and regret. I have moments that appear successful and yet I remain unhappy.

Just the other day, I received a certificate of appreciation for work well done and had my 1 minute of glory. Did that make my day? No, it only reminded me that there's no one who'd be proud of me when I came home. My estranged spouse, Ernie, is interested in other women so why share this grain of success with him? I always expected to marry a man who would respect, honor, cherish and grow with me. I expected to marry a man who would be interested in who I was and in who I was going to become. I expected to marry a man that saw me as an equal and held me in high regard. Instead, I married the father I never had. I married a condescending man with arrogant ways. I married a man whom when asked what his wife did would respond, "My wife is a career student." A man, who only stepped ground at the university I attended ONCE only to pick up our son. I married a man who turned and said to me one day, "I like that I can control you. I can tell you what to do and you'll do it." I married a man who gave me hell when it was time for me to purchase my monthly tampons/pads because I had to use HIS money. I married a man who assumed he was better than me because he had a full time job. It never mattered that I was a full-time student, freelancing from home, a mother and homemaker.

Oh! And need I forget, I married a man who's word I clung to until it was revealed that he'd had a 2nd wife and I was the 3rd. The same man who constantly claimed never to have time or money to have a girlfriend on the side, had been in a relationship with at least one other woman during our marriage. I say, at least, because now I believe there were others. Which in reality, I don't understand since he wasn't fond of any type of foreplay much less initiate anything in the bedroom. I married a man who would only respond, "Busy" when I'd ask about his day. I married a man who showed little if any interest in who I was. I married a man whom as I was attempting a conversation with would walk out of the room. I married a man who put football and beer before his wife and son. I thought I'd married a man who'd resolved to do better with marriage. I thought I'd married a man who'd love and care for me. Instead, I married a man I never truly knew.

Thank God for divorce!

Training wheels are off!

After about a year of letting his bike gather dust outside, I turned and asked my lil guy if he'd tried riding his bike. He shook his head and I proceeded to dust his bike's seat. His dad put air in the tires and he began his first attempt at riding a bike without training wheels. I held onto the back of his seat and gave him a nudge. He took hold of the handlebars and rode through the backyard calling, "Mom, are you still holding me?? Are you?" I wasn't. He got the hang of it on his first try and I was choked up. After riding around the grass in the backyard, he said he was ready to go on the pavement. We headed over to the front and ran alongside him as he became more and more familiar with riding. He gave me a work out! And then, he lost control and rode too close to the neighbor's wall. He rubbed his leg across the wall and the riding moment was over. The tears began to spill over but I continued to have a wide grin. My lil guy can ride a bike! :) :)

Trapped in my own backyard

I came across an e-mail that stated the idea of having a meeting in "your own backyard". Basically it means that this meeting is located in the same town that this individual lives in. As I do most days, I analyzed and broke apart the idea of El Paso, TX being MY backyard. My mind drifted to images of a dog trapped in his owner's backyard. In fact, I began to picture my own dog, Brina. I saw her running back and forth across the yard waiting for me to get home so that I can let her into the house. I pictured her sitting at the fence longing to see something or someone different as the hours go on. Then I thought about the rare moments she gets to leave the backyard to go on walks or trips in the car. My point is, I feel like my dog, trapped in my own backyard. My heart races when I get to travel outside the fence. It reminded me of how excited Brina gets when she hears the clinking of her tags on her dog collar indicating she's going for a rarely given walk. It seems that no matter how loud I bark, I'm stuck in my backyard. I could go on and on about the ill feelings I have about living in El Paso, but I'll save that for another day.

How do you see to find your glasses without your glasses on to see?

I grew up listening to a tape recording of "What's the Matter Nannybird?" by Peter & Hanneke Jacobsoff. It was cassette tape recorded for me by my Tia, Pat. I can still picture the handwritten title in red ink directly placed onto the label of the tape. In short, it is a Christian Children's story about the way God reveals Himself in mysterious ways. Nannybird, literally a bird, loses her glasses and goes through the entire story looking for them with help from friends. From time to time I recite to myself as Nannybird did, "How do you find your glasses without your glasses on to see?" It amazes me, that after all of these years (roughly 20 yrs), I can still hear Nannybird squawk something about trying to find her glasses. The line makes tons of sense to me since I am not only near-sighted, but have astigmatism and wear glasses. My world is a blur without these babies. I constantly have to repeat to others that what ever it is they urgently need me to see, needs to wait until I find my glasses. If by some bizarre reason (eh hem... like wearing contacts) I've misplaced my glasses, then I have a tremendously difficult time finding something I can't see. I fondly recall the story and have searched for it in my stash of old cassette tapes. Needless to say, I haven't been able to locate it. I think my son would enjoy listening to the story over one of our road trips. If anyone knows where I can find a copy, drop me a line! ;o)

And so it begins...

Once upon a time, a west Texas girl decided to blog. I'm not sure what this blog will unravel but here it goes....