a culinary genius is what i am.

Last night, I made my first full meal completely on my own. And I'm not talking pasta with sauce out the jar. I'm talking chicken and rice and oil and oyster sauce and vegetables and the whole deal. Without cookbooks, the aid of my mother or my boyfriend, who's the domestic genius of us two.

It was wonderful. Now I just want to cook all the time. Too bad I have $0.83 to my name, otherwise I'd be able to go grocery shopping and cook all the time.

Also, I'm finally about half-way through La Frontera, and I've come to the Doug-like conclusion that Anzaldua is crazy but brilliant. I'll need a good four shots of espresso before I can tackle that book again today...

Kittens and lovejoy.

I am having two kittens. Here is a picture of them: Argh! I'm so excited!

My allergies have been alive and well the past day. I woke up in the middle of the night with a fountain for a face. One swallow of children's grape-flavored allergy medicine and half-a-bowl of Ramen later, my nose had stopped running and I was dreaming that I was a Hispanic man who was being chased by a village because I was caught holding hands with a white woman. Neat.

Also, this:
Hi, my name is: what? my name is who? my name is chik-a-chik-a-slim shady!

but you can call me: Slim. Or Shady. It'd be accurate to call me both.

Never in my life have I: met Mikhail Gorbachov.

The one person who can drive me nuts is: I'll take Paula Abdul over Mary Murphy anyday.

My high school was: not known for academic excellence. I'll leave it at that.

When I’m nervous: I blow shit up. Literally. No really.

The last song I listened to was: something super duper (or super junior, for those of you who catch my drift, ifyouknowwhatimean), I'm sure. And not ridiculous Asian pop. Psssh.

If I were to get married right now it would be to:

My hair is: big. Big and lovely.

When I was 4: I liked to pretend that I was smoking. I also thought I would be a nurse when I grew up. HAHA.

Last Christmas: may or may not have been spent in a snowy pair-a-dice.

I should be: probably not doing this.

When I look down I see: my legs. Or what would have been my legs had I not lost them in a freak shark feeding accident.

The happiest recent event was: the arrival of my prosthetic legs. And kittens!

If I were a character on ‘Friends’ : if I were unoriginal, I'd say "Rachel" because our names are both Rachel and we are both unabashedly fashionable. But since I'm original and cross gender boundaries, I'll go with "Chandler" because if he were real and I rolled with upper middle-class white people who are never seen actually working and whose bigger problems were things like eating or not eating the neighbor's pies, I think he and I would get along real well.

By this time next year: I'll be kicking ass and taking names. In no particular order.

My current gripe is: that I am hot and sweating right now.

I have a hard time understanding: people who are stupid. And how Bill O'Reilly continues to function amidst the roar of cognitive dissonance that should be occuring in his psyche.

There's these girls: who dance like strippers and call it feminism, which probably isn't feminism if I had any kind of say in these things.

If I won an award, the first person I would tell would be: probably the person who helped me get there.

I want to buy: area rugs. And food. I'm wasting away feasting on condiments and pickles.

Where do you plan to visit: Justin Timberlake's hairline because it's so interesting and wavy.
If you spent the night at my house: you would love my red rainbow couch. You would dream of ponies and unicorns and Harry Potter, if that were your kind of thing.

The world could do without: nuclear weapons. Weapons in general. And things like cocaine and heroin and crack. And poverty. And Bill O'Reilly.

Most recent thing I’ve bought myself: A coconut latte that didn't taste like coconut.

Most recent thing someone else bought me: A meal. Wow. I am POOR.

My middle name is: Tajalli Ronquillo.

In the morning I: am never awake.

Last night I was: I couldn't even get an answer. I tried to call but my pride wouldn't let me dial and I'm sitting here with this blank expression, and the way I feel, I wanna curl up like a child. That what I was last night.

There’s this guy I know who: burps where you fart and farts where you burp.

If I was an animal I’d be a: cat.

A better name for me would be: Kitana. Because I like kitanas (despite my firm belief in doing away with all weapons) and I like fighting video games, especially ones with girls named Kitana.

Tomorrow I am: roaring like the woman I am.

Tonight I am: still roaring.

My birthday is: the day the Titanic sank, drowning Rose and stranding Jack on a door in the middle of the freezing Atlantic Ocean.

If I could describe myself in five words they would be: outrageous, courageous, poetic, irreverent, lovely.

Im in love with: the world, and also my manfriend, Mario.

My worst habit is: sloth. The money is in all the 7 deadly sins, except that one.

I dislike: not going to the beach in so long.

My favorite tv show is: let's not discuss this. It'd just embarass everyone involved.

I like to: do some reading, some coffee drinking, some flying, some errand running, some fine dining, some watching television with enjoyable company, some going to movies solo, some Yo Yo Girl Cop.

I'm looking forward to: the day when a movie that rivals YoYo Girl Cop hits Blockbusters everywhere.

and here we are. and this is now.

so last night, i got the idea into my head to listen to ani's album "dilate." which, for me, is one of those albums that, at a certain point in my life, i listened to over and over and over again. it's one of those albums that i've spent entire nights listening to on repeat and crying my heart out to. every song on that album is gold, and since freshman year of college, i haven't listened to any of them until last night. there's just too much pain and memories in that album, but last night i worked up the courage to listen to it. every song. it was a quiet collection of moments in my existence. it was nice to listen to that, and only remember feelings, not feel them.

also, i'm growing tired of pretentiousness. everyone is pretentious to some degree, but excess of pretention is absolutely useless to anybody. screw pretentiousness. that's what i've got to say about that.

recycling.

So I was somehow caught in reading the emails in the "sent" folder of my email, and found this rambling in an email that I wrote, which oddly echoes the sentiments of my last blog entry. Enjoy.

I don't really know how you would explain music with words in the first place. For that matter, how do you describe anything, like feelings? How can you convey emotions with words? How can you convey the way a song sounds, how a song makes you feel with words? I could say that the acoustic version of "405" by Death Cab feels like a drive on the highway right after a super huge thunderstorm, and that smell of moistness and how the air feels on your skin, and how you somehow feel like a different, perhaps more enlightened person, even after the rain, and how the wet earth makes you feel like planting something or at least walking around in it barefoot, but mostly, you just feel like you're free.

How can that even be a feeling? But it is...and if I tell the right people about it, they'll know what I'm talking about. Some will understand it, most won't...or maybe that's just me...but whatever. Know what I mean? =)

I guess just words in general...words are my craft, I use words to create reality or destroy it, words are everything. But at the same time, they're pretty much nothing because they're just words...actions allegedly speak louder than words, so...words are nothing and everything at the same time, and I guess that's just the reality we all have to live with. And it's something we all have to realize at one point or another, and we can't ever say that words are everything and have that be the truth, and we can't ever say that words are nothing and have that be absolute truth. Words need to be used in moderation, and it would help if people only said what they meant so that it wouldn't be hard to distinguish between what means something and what means nothing...

The meaning of meandering.

The thing about feeling inarticulable feelings is that the only thing that can articulate these things in the least is poetry or music. Or a friend whom you can call up and say, "Hi. I feel funny" and have them understand exactly what it is and why it is you feel the way you do (after, of course, the preliminary, "By feeling funny, you don't mean pregnant, do you? Oh okay, thank GOD.")

It feels like the past has been folding in on me lately. Yesterday, Mario and I were talking about Sage Francis and Ani Difranco, and how much these people and their art means to us. It's funny how some things just feel like home, like wrapping yourself in the softest blanket possible, like lying on the floor and closing your eyes. These are things we discuss, and these are the things that are inarticulable -- you won't know what I'm talking about unless you know what I'm talking about. All these words I use are feeble attempts to describe the things that I feel that have no English translation.

Hindsight is a wonderful tool. I just wish it would come sooner. I guess you can't get a look at the big picture until you're farther away from it than you were.