Birthday-Palooza

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Brahim: "Do you remember when we met?"
Me: "Yeah. It was my birthday, June 10th."
Brahim: "Yep. And what's today?"
Me: "Your birthday."
Brahim: "Yep."

Silent reflection....



Lisa took this picture later that night and it will always make me laugh, because we're both such dorks.


And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to:
Denise who turned Sweet 16 on the 25th
and to Charlie, who (I think) turned Sweet 23 on the 26th.

The Miles: Part 1

Sam, Lisa and I love the Miles!

Mama

As I cursed my printer for failing to print my Coldplay concert report three times in a row, my mom walked in to say goodnight as she usually does.

"Hey mom, you want to see my husband?"

(Now remember, my mom is from El Salvador, and when she speaks English she has an accent.)
"You don have a hussband, don say tat. Neever get married."

"Yes I do, do you want to see him, he's right here." I put on one of the videos I have of Chris Martin for my mother's viewing pleasure. "Do you see that green band on his finger?"

"Jess."

"I have it, wanna see it?" And without waiting for her response, I pulled it out and showed it to her. "See mom, he is my husband, he gave me this ring and said "Mendy, will you marry me?""

"Iss tape."

Without responding, I showed her the picture on my desktop, an offical artsy picture with Chris Martin front-and-center. "See mom, isn't he pretty?"

"Heem? Hees oogly."

"UGLY?!!! Get out of my room!"

"Jess he's oogly. I don like all that hair on his face. (a little stubble) I like men weeth chest hair. My nest boyfriend weel have chest hair."

"Okay mom. But he's not ugly, and he is my husband."

"He iss oogly, and don say hees joor hussband."

"Yes he is mom. If he were to walk into the house right now and tell me to leave with him and go be his wife and England, I would say yes."

"Only if joo take yoor mama."

"Okay. We can take walks around London together."

Then my mom just scoffed at me and shot me a dirty look. The word "London" is as poisononous to her as "Voldemort" is to Harry Potter - she never did give me permission to go.

Sometimes I love to hear my mother's opinion on the world. London is evil and Chris Martin is ugly, but chest hair would make him damn sexy.

Concert Reports

I'm taking a short break.

As part of my general education requirements, I'm taking a course entitled Music 102: Popular Music in America. I love college. Our main assignment for the semester was to attend three concerts and then write a 500-word report on each concert. Did I mention I love college? The reports are due on Thursday, and I've already re-lived my White Stripes experience. I'm currently writing about Coldplay, and then I'll move on to the Bravery concert.

I've been watching the videos, looking through pictures, and listening to the music as I write these reports. The memories are flooding my brain and I realized that I didn't blog about the White Stripes or Coldplay. I won't get into great detail, I have to save the emotion for the reports, but I do want to spread a little sunshine.

The White Stripes were extremely impressive, Jack White is so fucking talented. He can play the hell out of any guitar, the piano, even the xylophone; and all the while he'll sing his little heart out. Meg White, bless her soul, she can play little a beat, sing a little song, and that's about it. I really liked the way they changed the music from the studio recordings, they dragged it out, sped it up, embellished it, and rock it out. My favorite song was probably "Hotel Yorba", everyone there was compelled to either clap, smack their knees or stomp there feet. Jack White is also very polite, he must have thanked us a million times. I'd definitely see the White Stripes live again.

"Parachutes" has been conquered for the night, and as I move on to "A Rush of Blood To The Head" I must say that Coldplay - is better than sex. All of you non virgins gasp and say "What? Better than sex? Never!" Forgive me my past lovers, you guys were great and I adore you, but Chris Martin gave me countless musical orgasms and made me cry tears of joy. I was so weak from the emotional strain at the end of that concert that I couldn't talk or walk straight.

If it wasn't for the post-concert Southern Comfort waiting patiently for Sam and I, we would have stayed up all night, talking about Coldplay. Nothing else. Mel could have danced around the room wearing nothing but a smile and we would have probably just glanced over at her and continued to talk without missing a beat. Okay, now I'm just exaggerating, but it was good.

As I watch the videos, I still can't believe I was that close to Chris Martin. I know he's a normal man like any other but he's Chris Martin - he's British, he's gorgeous, he's funny, he plays the guitar, he's nice, creative, talented and he makes me cry tears of joy. Any guy who possesses many or all of those traits is not going to be a "normal man" for me...hence the accumulation of past lovers...if my memory serves me right.

I'm being overly fanatical and probably not very coherent. I swear I haven't been drinking, music just has the same effect. I'm just very grateful to the forces that allowed me to experience Coldplay create music in front of me. It's all about the music.

"Clocks" just played. I can't listen to this song anymore without seeing Chris Martin bouncing up and down on his little piano stool, basically humping the piano. It was hilarious - to see him so involved with music that he probably didn't realize he was humping a piano. It was also hot because I saw Chris Martin in the act of humping. I have it on video.

Coldplay is coming back to Washington DC on March 2, 2006; the ticket sales start this Saturday. Hopefully the gods will allow me a second round of those Brits, equally as amazing or maybe even better. Whew, how will I prevent myself from spontaneously combusting?

Holy Shit

I am the only one who is completely flabbergasted at the fact that it's MID-NOVEMBER???

When did this happen?

2005 is almost over. I can't believe it. It's so sad.

I'll definately be sharing the highlights of 2005, and let me tell you now, there were MANY.

I should start writing now. It's going to take all of 2006 to process everything that happened in 2005.

It was a damn good year though.

History, beds, and Brahim.

I'm attempting to get my creative juices flowing. I have to write a three page paper on the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800's and the Benevolent Empire based on the writings of William Ellery Channing, William Lloyd Garrison and four other writers with equally long names. At least their names will make the paper a little longer.

Obviously, I'm not in the Benevolent Empire writing mood. I'm not sure why I become so brain dead when I have to write my U.S. History papers. Maybe it's the pressure; we're only assigned four of these papers the whole semester, it's basically our only grade besides a presentation I already did. I only get four chances to prove myself. Sounds like a lot, but it sure doesn't feel like much.

I earned a B-/C on my first paper. I don't understand why I was given a slashed grade. It's an insult really, "We're giving you the B- to be nice but this is really C work, you average person." I won't complain too much though, I wrote that paper from 12:00-6:00am the day it was due. I ended up oversleeping and I walked in as class was ending. I set down my paper, looked at the professor to make sure he wasn't going to scold me, and left with the rest of the class. I thought he would scold me but maybe he saw the lack of sleep and freshman desperation in my eyes and decided against it. God Bless Professor Cotter.

It's almost 11:00pm and this paper is due at 10:30am. I've done a minimal amount of research already, and I have the experience of paper #1 so I'm hoping it won't take six hours to write this paper. Another reason I'm hoping it won't take all night is because I have a sinus headache and the sinful temptation of a whole box of Tylenol Sinus and a brand new extremely comfortable bed.

My mother bought me a new bed yesterday because my old bed - it was a joke. Anyone who has ever slept with me knows what I'm talking about. And when I say slept, I mean friends and family actually sleeping. I am not a whorebag. Anyway, a series of unlikely and unsinful events led to the destruction of the spring box below the mattress, which made for a very uncomfortable and unbelievably squeaky sleeping experience. I was actually getting to the point where I considered sleeping on the floor just because I thought it would be more comfortable, or at least quieter.

My cousin Mario would always say, "If you ever had sex in this bed, the whole neighborhood would hear it." I believed him. He was wrong. Okay, so maybe I was a whorebag, but only once.

Speaking of which, I want to update my swarms of readers (heh) on Brahim. I don't want to get too detailed, but basically I decided to stop calling him. And since there is some sort of tumor in his brain that doesn't make it possible for him to have the ability to pick up the phone and call me, my decision to stop calling him ceased all communication between us for more than a month. Life went on, I immersed myself in school and work. We never officially broke up but I considered him a bittersweet memory.

Until a few weeks ago he was still a memory. Then, in true Brahim fashion he sent me a text message, saying something like "I need to talk to you, let's meet up, I'll call you." I responded with a simple "Okay." but didn't trouble myself about it. You do not want to hold your breath when Brahim says "I'll call you." You will suffocate. He did attempt to meet up with me the following Saturday but I had already made plans and when I tried to change my plans around and got back to him, he had made plans to break Ramadan fast with friends. Once again, I didn't trouble myself about it and life when on.

Until yesterday. And now I'm getting irritated. Brahim and his friend Jalil and Lisa are my original NOVA Sluts, and they bump into each other occasionally on campus. The combination hadn't bumped into each other for a while, which I was thankful for. The last thing I wanted was the three of them discussing me when I'm not there. That's exactly what happened yesterday. The three of them bumped into each other and started chatting. Apparently Brahim had just started attending classes again after he took off almost a month. Lisa sent me a text telling me that she was talking to them, and I sent her one back. Jalil noticed it was from me and started teasing Brahim about missing me. Then Jalil and Brahim started asking Lisa questions about me, "Did she miss him? Is she seeing anyone new? Has she been with anyone else? Was she in love with Brahim?" That last one irritates me the most. Lisa is no authority on my love life.

The boys told her not to tell me what they had asked, but of course that was pointless. I called Lisa as soon as I thought they'd had enough time to "chat" and she filled me in. It completely ruined my jolly mattress shopping mood. I called Brahim but he didn't answer, I knew he wouldn't because he knew why I was calling. He sent the infamous "I'll call you" text as I was leaving a voicemail, which I rarely do. It wasn't an angry voicemail, it was a frustrated voicemail. I demanded that we find a time that we can get together and discuss any questions he might have because I considered it rude that he would ask Lisa. Especially since he didn't approve of me asking his friends about his personal life when we were in a relationship.

I'm still waiting for his response. But I won't be waiting for long this time, I'm going to get him face to face sometime soon, even if I have to blow up his phone or "surprise" him at school or home. He obviously has questions, and I have answers. And a few extra comments to throw in.

Leticia is certain we'll reconcile and end up making out when I see him again. Leticia is an authority on my love life, she's been there through it all and even had some similar experiences. I want to prove her wrong, but sometimes I do miss him. Brain tumors can be removed but it requires a lot of work.

I think I'm ready for some Channing and Garrison.