“Do you ever feel like a cliché?” she asked and looked up at him.

“Always,” he replied with a sly smile.

She threw back her head and laughed and continued slowly dancing to “Volver, Volver.”

“The Hurt Locker… I think I saw that movie with you.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Let me check.”

“But you did, I know.”

He got up from the bed, walked toward a shelf by the door and picked up a large ziplock bag from the shelf. He walked back to me and sat in the bed.

He fished around for the orange ticket stub amongst more ticket stubs, photo booth strips, homemade cards, simple notes scrawled in the morning, and more mementos of our 18 month relationship.

“Here it is! Yup, I saw it with you.”

“I knew that already,” I said as I looked through the clear bag. I stopped and then spoke without thinking.

“So, is this the stuff you’re going to burn when I break up with you?”

“Probably not. I’ll just put it away, but it depends on the terms of the breakup.”

“Oh.”

One day, I’m going to tell this story. I won’t leave anything out. For once, I’ll be honest. At least as honest as my memory allows. I’ll recount the beginning, the middle and the end.

End? You ask.

Of course. There will be an end. This isn’t the kind of story with an ever after.

Ten… nine… eight

I didn’t join in the countdown, I just steadied myself against my cousin and others in our group in anticipation for the chaos at midnight.

And it was chaotic. Balloons fell, cheers broke out, people around me hugged and kissed. I didn’t join in. No boyfriend or date by my side to hug tightly and give a sloppy drunken kiss to in celebration of a new year and decade.

Instead, I swatted the silver balloons falling around me and settling at my feet. There were a lot. They crowded the floor so I couldn’t move, not that there was much room on the crowded ballroom dance floor.

As Jesús hugged Mariana and Jenn, I stomped. I stepped on one silver balloon. It popped easily under my heel. I popped a second, then a third, a fourth and so on until the area around my feet was clear.

A tall white guy — whose silly sunglasses I had borrowed a few minutes earlier for a photo to add to the weird eye-wear files — asked, “whoa, where is all this aggression coming from?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know.

I felt out of place at the Roosevelt Hotel’s New Year’s Eve party. It was too Hollywood. My simple black dress wasn’t shiny, short or tight enough. And my heels didn’t look like a torture device. Still, I was having a good time sipping on free drinks and dancing. My original NYE plan fell through, but Jesús saved me (hah!) with a last minute opportunity.

I snapped a few photos. The tall white guy kicked another balloon my way. I stepped on it with my heel and relished the pop.

My mom didn’t watch much TV when I was growing up. In fact, I rarely saw her just sitting around doing nothing.

“No real work is done when you’re sitting,” she’d remind me as I’d take a seat while folding laundry.

Still, she did turn on the TV for background noise when she ironed. Most of the times it was the afternoon newscast. That was practical. She could get an update on rush hour traffic and know when to expect my dad and get the weather forecast.

In listening to these newscasts, I mistook the anchors’ “Southern California” for “sunny California.” This made much more sense to a kid growing up in the drought years as Tony! Toni! Tone! sang “It Never Rains (In Southern California)”.

I write all this to give you an idea of why I’d complain after four straight days of rain during dinner with my advisor and fellow grad students.

While my fellow advisees — tired of sloshing around campus, traffic and taking the bus in the rain — felt my pain, my advisor did not.

“You need to leave California, Cindy.”

She had just returned from a work trip to Michigan and surely some rain and lows in the 40s were little to complain about.

I pouted.

(more…)

I went out for a run after work today. It was my first run of the year. I felt good as I started off, went up the first hill and continued past the park. I felt good. I knew I’d be improving my time and even thought about extending my run despite the fact that I don’t like doing long runs in the dark.

Still, I ran up the hill, to the park, past the park to the golf course and then turned. As I ran on the sidewalk, I tripped slightly but caught my balance. I remember feeling lucky. It was close, and a fall would be bad. Actually, I was surprised that in half a year of running, I hadn’t tripped over my own feet given my recurring bouts of Cindyitis.

I must have jinxed myself. Three steps later, I tripped as I stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street. Once again, I caught my balance, but only temporarily. A second later, I was on the asphalt. My right elbow took the brunt of the impact.

A driver passing by slowed down.

He rolled down his window.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I replied as I stared at my scraped and dirty palms. Each one had small cuts already. I wanted to ask if he had a first aid kit in his car, but figured I was the only person accident prone enough to carry a kit.

“I think I’m just scraped up, but I’m okay.”

“Good,” he said and drove off.

I stepped to the sidewalk and inspected my injuries more closely in better light. I cleaned off my palms a little with a tissue in my pocket and then took off my windbreaker to see the damage to my aching elbow. It was scraped up and already swollen, but not bleeding.

“That’s going to be a bad bruise,” I said to myself, but felt thankful I’d chosen to wear the windbreaker even though it wasn’t too cold.

As I put my jacket back on, I felt like crying. My elbow hurt. I regretted not asking the driver for a ride. I was still about two miles from home.

But I didn’t cry. I walked a few steps, started my iPod again and then continued running — though more carefully — to Ely Guerra’s Júrame. It wasn’t as good as “Sana, sana colita de rana,” but it did the trick.

On my first night in New York, I joined my host, Jenny, and a few of her friends for a night of salsa dancing.

I changed and put on some black flats, the closest I had to dancing shoes. Jenny and I took the train a few stops where we met up with G and her friend J.

Half an hour, a few trains and two blocks later, we were at our destination. G, who had brought along a special pair of dance shoes, gave her ID to the bouncer. He nodded, gave it back to her and she went through the door. J, the token guy in the group, did the same thing.

Once J and G had entered, I stepped up and handed the bouncer my recently renewed driver’s license. I turned my head and looked down the street, but turned when I heard the bouncer.

“That’s not you. I’m not letting you in,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What? That’s me.”

The first two stopped and turned around, curious about the commotion.

“No, that’s her,” he said and pointed and Jenny.

Jenny held up her own driver’s license and protested, “No, this is me.”

The bouncer shook his head.

I tried arguing. It’s a new picture, only a year old (by the way, I actually like my photo). That’s me in that picture, I repeated in hopes that if I just stated the truth he would believe me. I offered to be quizzed on the information on the card. I could easily recite my address, birth date, height, weight, eye color, and driver’s license number. I didn’t mention what I was thinking: come on, I haven’t lost that much weight that a stranger does not believe September 2009 me is not August 2008 me.

It didn’t work. The bouncer gave me back my card and once again told me I was not getting in.

Jenny, J, G and I huddled outside the club, trying to figure out plan b. A few minutes later, we hailed a cab and were off to try and salvage the night.

Sometimes at the big parties, I wouldn’t dance. Instead, I’d stick out my arms, place my feet — in cute patent leather Mary Janes — in position and spin. My colitas and dress would fly up.

The dancers would become a blur. Until I bumped into one.

Then I’d be told to stop.

“Ya párale, te vas a marear!”

But that’s exactly what I wanted. So I wouldn’t listen and get back to spinning. Soon, cousins and siblings would join the fun and we’d become a small group of whirling dervishes.

It was all so much fun… until someone got hurt. Someone always got hurt. The eldest kid or ringleader would try to prevent more drama.

“Don’t cry! You’re going to get us in trouble!”

But it was futile. We hadn’t learned yet how to suppress the tears. A parent would rush over, to scold the crier.

“Te dije… that’s what you get.”

The sniffling crier would be taken away or inside to get cleaned up. The rest of us would come up with a new game to entertain us… until someone got hurt.

Photo taken by Alan at LACMA inside a Richard Serra sculpture

No one remembers the original offense. It’s not important. I did something bad enough to warrant passing on punishment to dad.

“Wait until your dad comes home. You’re gonna get it,” mom warned.

Uh oh. That was bad. Dad had less patience for misbehaved children than mom. I hoped she would forget by the time dad arrived from work 3 or 4 hours later. Perhaps she wouldn’t forget, but dad would just shrug off the report of my bad behavior and I would get away without a spanking. Yeah right, that was unlikely.

Dad was in a bad mood when he got home. No surprise. He’d been dealing with entitled and demanding customers all day and then sat through 2 hours of LA traffic on his commute from Van Nuys back to Hacienda Heights.

On most days, I rushed to hug dad as soon as I heard his car pull up the driveway. I loved taking his Igloo lunch box and looking for some leftover Fritos. That day I stayed away save for a quick hello. I returned to my room to read the latest Babysitters Club book I had checked out from the library.

Just as I was starting a new chapter, I heard dad call from the kitchen, “Cindy, come here.”

Damn, I thought. She didn’t forget.

In the kitchen, dad finished up his dinner while mom cleaned up.

“Your mom told me what you did. Go get a belt.”

I didn’t try to defend myself, and instead followed his directions.

I took my time looking through the closet. I was in no rush to get spanked. I sifted through dad’s black leather belts and mom’s brightly colored belts. I was used to dad’s belts. They hurt. I did the logical thing and chose one of mom’s flimsy belts.

I took it back to the kitchen. Mom was surprised when she saw me return with the turquoise belt she wore with one of her favorite dresses. Dad tried to hide his bemusement.

“¿Qué es esto?” he asked sternly.

I shrugged. “You told me to bring a belt.”

He thought silently while I held my breath wondering if he’d spank me with mom’s belt or send me back to the closet with explicit instructions to bring one of his belts.

After a minute he waved me away and conceded defeat. He’d just been outsmarted by an eight year old.

Benny: Man, you think too much! I bet you get straight A’s and shit!
Smalls: No, I got a B once. Well, actually it was an A minus but it should have been a B.
Benny: Man, this is baseball, you gotta stop thinking! Just have fun. If you were having fun, you would have caught that ball!
(from The Sandlot, 1993)

I got a lot of A’s as a kid. A lot. I was, like, a genius. Gifted even. (/snark)

After hearing my classmates brag about their monetary awards for good grades ($20 an A, $10 a B and so on), I was rather annoyed. All I got for my good grades was encouragement and praise. Who wants that?

When I was 11-years old I found the courage to bring this up to mom and dad. I offhandedly suggested that they get in line with other Glenelder Elementary parents. Mom laughed. She must have done the math in her head and realized she’d be paying out over $100 each quarter just for my grades.

“No, mija,” dad replied.

Then he started with the lecture. Oh no. When we got to a certain age, we no longer were spanked. We were lectured. That was worse. While a spanking only affected the wrongdoer and was over in a few minutes, the lecture often involved all siblings and lasted half an hour. Whenever Danny got in trouble or decided to talk back, I’d have to sit through that lecture too. The time paled in comparison to the guilt. Dad was good at making us realize how much we’d disappointed him and mom. I still dread those lectures. Actually, dad didn’t lecture this time. He told a story with a lesson (close enough).
(more…)