Gross.

I'm super unsanitary and bite my nails too, but seeing someone else's dirty bitten off nail on the public computer keyboard was too much. I need this day to be over now.

my fan base

I received a possibly backhanded compliment from a homeless man this morning.  "You're rocking the black tights again today." Like, he noticed that I'm wearing the same pantyhose as yesterday. I guess he's not one to mind that sort of thing, but I'm still embarrassed that he noticed what I assumed no one would.

My husband mocks my style and meager wardrobe, but I'll have him know that there's a market of men out there who think I rock clothing he deems grandmotherly and repetitive.

just a thought...

For a more believable breast augmentation, plastic surgeons should add chunks of lard to those skinny bitches' armpits. Not to brag or anything, but as someone with real, as in actual, not like rul, large breasts, I know all about those two bonus boobs. Apart from ruining every outfit and all of my wedding photos, those tufts of excess skin and fat are the marks of authenticity.

xmas pics

Our li'l Christmas nook. This is the falsely advertised tree we bought three years ago. I actually love it, every 20 inches of it. My fave is the paper polar bear on top. We also stuck my sister's kids' Santa photo in there.

Best damn tortilla soup. Maybe it looks gross, I can't accurately decipher because I know it's heart warming and delicious.

Monkey balls, balls of monkeys,a family Christmas delicacy

Neno surprised me with new running shoes. This is the only photo documenting my presence in xmas 2011. I deleted all 50 -- literally, 50 -- of my double chinned, bug eyed self portrait attempts and decided to stick with legs. I'm not photogenic. That's what I'm going with, "not photogenic." I'm a looker, the camera just can't quite capture it. Luckily, even when I'm chubby and old, my legs will always be on point. I'm blessed with the body of Kermit the frog.



At first

we weren't going to exchange gifts. Then we decided -- OK, one. Only ONE. Eugenio broke the rule and has two presents under the tree for me. I've been telling everyone -- when asked, not willy-nilly -- I'm getting a web cam for Christmas, because that's what I want and what I've been not even subtly hinting at for months. Eugenio, laughing out loud, informed me during a guess-the-present talk that neither box contains a web cam.

"Why do you even want a web cam?" he asks, in a tone that suggest my request is a joke, which it is not. So I can start my amateur porn site, duh. And also so I can video chat with "friends and family."


It seems I may be buying myself the web cam, which is fine. It's not like I want a smartphone or an e-Reader or anything modern but monetarily unattainable to my broke ass. I just want a cheap camera to attach to my laptop. I wouldn't even want a good one if it were possible because the good ones might be better at picking up details, and I just want people to get a blurry gist of what I look like. I figured a gift exchange between adults is more or less an exchange of To-Dos. To prove our love this holiday season, you go get me this, while I go get you that. But I like Eugenio's style: Surprise! I didn't run your errand, but I got you something from the heart. He always has to be the genuinely nice guy. It's annoying.

Perhaps I can do as my niece did. Last time we were in San Antonio, Eugenio and I took her to Target with us after dinner. She ran ahead and when we caught up to her, we found her in an aisle staring at web cams, eyes darting pensively from one to the other.

"I'm saving my money for one of these," she said. "My friend has one."

"Well, which one do you want? We'll get it for you," Eugenio replied.

"No. I'll get in trouble. My mom will probably think I asked you to buy it for me."

After assuaging her fears, we walked out of the store with the new ticket to tween social networking. Britney knows her mother's faith in her well. "Britney Amber!" she middle-name admonished, discovering her daughters new toy. We felt a bit guilty for not asking Mom -- perhaps parents would prefer to consent to a web cam first -- but what are aunts and uncles for if not to buy love? Now the new family joke is to take Eugenio to the store with you, casually mentioning you're saving your money while looking longingly at the object of your desire. I think I got my idea about a web cam being the one-thing-I-really-want from this situation, anyway. When I was little, I wanted a Power Wheel so badly; I fantasized driving it out of the drive way, top down, hair blowing in the wind, sporting my new shades. It proved a melodramatic story of unrequited love, as material desires often are. Then, many many years later my mom straight up bought Britney, her only grandkid at the time, a Power Wheel for Christmas and she DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR IT. It's like my niece is the cool kid I never was nor ever will be, though I'll try. Oh, you have a web cam? Me too. NBD. But I digress...

Really, I'm almost giddy like a child about my surprise gifts from Neno. He's the sweetest. I do like a surprise. I always feel sentimental around this time of year remembering my mom and how she always made Christmas magical for her seven kids. I wrote an essay about it; I may post later.

other people's concerns

The saddest part of not going home for Christmas

is not being able to see my niece and nephews, like this guy:

My niece took this photo. I love his outfit and especially his pose. Clearly he takes modeling advice from Neno. 

my choice

You know how when you spend so much time with someone, you pick up their mannerisms and vice versa? I always yell, "My body, my choice!" whenever Eugenio tells me to do or stop doing something, like biting my nails or picking scabs.

Yesterday I told Eugenio I was planning on buying filing cabinets to replace the eye-sore of a desk in our room. He swears he needs that desk, but all he uses it for is shoving important documents in drawers and keeping unimportant documents strewn on top. He doesn't use it for reading, writing, studying, or anything one would need an actual desk for. He uses our kitchen table for those tasks. A filing cabinet is more in line with what we need. But Eugenio has a serious, inexplicable attachment to this big, ugly desk taking up half of our bedroom, so when I made this statement about replacing it, his face grew red, his voice exasperated as he shouted, "My desk, my choice!" hitting the table with his fist.

An essay on Neo-Eugenio

Neno is coming back today. We're going to watch Little Women. Before he left he mentioned that Little Women was set to arrrive on Saturday. It was a passive aggresive hint that I watch it while he's away. Because I like to win in that category, I saved it for his return. Among other really important matters, writing this essay is what I did with my time instead. 

I like the idea of naming children, but I punctuate that thought with my belief that we’re all more or less the same. We might as well all be Dick and Janes -- or Joses and Marias. Naming a kid after a piece of fruit or a vibrant color is not the antidote to an average life. My husband is Mexican and comes from a line of people who share his name. Given colliding DNA, our Mexican-German-Norwegian-English-Etcetera-Etcetera spawn get to start the name slate anew. I harbor some guilt for being the iconoclast stirring the pot of familial tradition, but I’d like to use my shot at creative freedom, lend an air of individuality, and not fall back on naming my unborn son Jose Eugenio after my husband and his father, grandfather, great grandfather, and so on.

There’s also the point that I haven’t successfully mastered the pronunciation. On the night of my first date with Eugenio, my roommate at the time and I called every native Spanish speaker we knew frantically asking, “How do you say this name?” Considering we had been corresponding via email and phone for a few weeks, I thought it past the point of acceptable to ask my date, “Now, what’s your name again?”

Obviously things worked out well for us or I wouldn’t be writing about naming our children, but that doesn’t ease the difficulty on my American tongue of pronouncing the E-U in Eugenio. It’s not like the E-U in Eugene or eugenics or Europe. It’s more dramatic, with each sound pronounced but in one syllable. I can say it slowly but it sounds clunky and takes too much time. The native speaker says it fast and fluidly, making the E-U an effortless syllable. I typically avoid butchering his name. When we first started dating I called him “Hey you” to his face, Rico Suave in my head, and Latin Lover in my blog. Now that my guards down and we’re married, he’s my papi chulo, though he unsuccessfully petitions for El Papa Rey. On the rare occasion that I do say his name out loud, it comes out of my mouth as such: Oh-hen-nyo or sometimes Yew-hen-nyo, which sounds correct enough, but alas, is not precise. It’s like how a French coworker calls me Ahna, though my name is Hanna. She pronounces it beautifully and as well as her native tongue allows, but it’s not the way my mother intended. At any rate, this point is moot, as my lack of skill was not considered, but was rather an afterthought in our decision to open the flood gates on baby names. Besides, Eugenio is technically my husband’s middle name, and we have, after all, agreed to make Eugenio our sons middle name as well, but unlike his future father, this unborn baby will go by his first, tradition breaking name. Entiende?

This has presented an entirely new issue as my husband dreams up boy names. Girl names have proven easier to come by and agree upon, a point not lost on me, but I pick my battles carefully. I could be angry that my husband doesn’t put equal thought into choosing girl names, or that he assumes too much about the nature of our unborn female or male child. Nonetheless, if we ever have a girl, we have a list of names to choose from. If we ever have a boy, we have a list of names to argue over. Eugenio’s only criteria for boy names are: is it from a comic book or science fiction film and does it “sound cool.”

He’ll be sitting on the couch playing a video game and as I walk over to turn the volume down, he’ll pause, apropos of nothing, and say, “What about Magnus?” He takes his hand and brushes it across the air as he repeats, “Magnus.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not? It’s cool,” is his rebuttal. This is always his rebuttal.

I inform him that I am not naming my kid after a condom.

“No, that’s Magnum. This is Magnus.”

Magnus means large, but it also means great. That’s a lot of pressure and awfully arrogant. I am not a very tall person and my husband must, though he’ll disagree on this, look up to meet my eyes when I’m wearing my flats. Unless genes from my father take over in full force, our child will be on the average, if not small side. Naming him Magnus will only serve as childhood bully fodder. Can you imagine – a dwarf named Magnus? A completely average boy named Magnus? It’s ridiculous. I explain this much. Eugenio disagrees and holds on to his only point as if it were valid: It’s so cool.

Episodes like this happen frequently. We have only agreed on one name: Neo. I suggested it because it goes well with our last name and suits my penchant for the letter N. Plus it matches the theme of nicknames my niece and nephews have created for us. I’m Nana and Eugenio is Neno. As a family we could be Neno, Nana, and Neo Najera. Eugenio took to it with enthusiasm. It wasn’t until recently that I realized his gusto stemmed from Neo being the name of a character in The Matrix, which I’ve never seen, and had nothing to do with any inherent cuteness. My love for the name waned.

Eugenio is an Oncologist. He spends his day treating cancer patients. When I hear him on the phone with colleagues, typically the only words my lay person ears understand are the pronouns – he, she, it. He submits serious articles to medical journals, whereas I write in my blog. I mention this to not only highlight the breadth of my husband’s character but also to lessen the blow of what I’m about to say. Although my husband is no doubt smarter than most native English speakers, he, like many native speakers, sometimes proves to not have the firmest grip on the English language.

Another day after pausing his video game, putting down the controller, he says – I would say he says this apropos of nothing, but I have come to realize his inspiration is usually right in front of him – “What about Bane?” Again, he sweeps his hand and repeats “Bane,” as if it helps me to imagine it hanging in the air.

“Excuse me? Bane? As in B-A-N-E?”

“Yes, Bane.”

“Are you aware of what that means? As in: the bane of my existence.”

“It’s from Batman. It sounds cool.”

There’s probably a reason this character is named Bane, but we don’t discuss it. Later that day, on our way to the movie theatre, we find ourselves on the topic of Bane again. He’s not letting this one go without a fight. How can I be clearer?

“Ok, sure. We’ll name our kid Bane. And for the second we’ll just go with Mistake or maybe even Shit-Head.”

So you see, naming this hypothetical unborn child is becoming the bane of my existence. It’s not until many days after our conversation that I learn from an internet search that the comic book character Bane is an escaped convict and former drug addict of sorts who breaks Batman’s spinal cord. He belongs to a team deemed “Suicide Squad.” This villain is whom my cancer curing husband wants to name our kid after? What the hell is he thinking? He’s flipping the name game on its head, unintentionally making a statement I respect but can’t endorse. Right then I realized the importance of researching any name my husband suggests or willingly agrees to – which I mentioned, is one. I read up on The Matrix.

Neo is an anagram of one, which in the movie more specifically alludes to The One who will eventually bring peace to the world. Perhaps cumbersome to live up to, I prefer to look at it this way: Neo, anagram of one, is The One name we agree upon. And: Neo Eugenio – the new Eugenio, as opposed to the old Eugenio when everyone went by the same name.

Neno and our nephew Logan representin' their comics

Just so you know, I’m not pregnant, simply prepared to name a hypothetical son who might end up hating and changing his name eventually, anyway. I don’t even know if I really want kids.

enthusiatic kate

My friend Kate finished her last law school final of the semester last night. Today she sent me these text messages:

Kate: I'm in major craft mode and I'm sooooo excited!!!

Me: Lol. You sound excited. I think that's your true calling.

Kate: I think it is too!!! I'm making a wreath!!! And 3 Christmas trees! I'll send pics!! : ))

Kate: I'm in looovee with this!! I just want to craft all my life!! Lol

If I didn't know any better, I'd think she's a housewife with a prescription drug problem. But I know better. This is called perspective -- letting the law school student out of the bag, if you will.

Day 2 of no human contact.

I feel like Thoreau...but with the internet, treadmills, and TV. Other than those three things, totally Thoreau.

I'm working on a scarf. I'm really proud of this piece because it's my first that doesn't look like a complete failure thus far.

Later I'll go running then check out some YouTube videos before I spend an obscene amount of time getting ready for the day. My new hobby is learning how to apply makeup from 15 year olds. You never know who you'll meet locked up in your own apartment.

Yesterday I did talk to someone in the flesh. It was the man walking ferociously on the treadmill next to me. Whenever I see someone putting effort into walking that fast, I want to suggest, you can probably handle jogging now. But that's not what we talked about. He mentioned something about how I went outside to take a phone call (because I'm so popular). You get going and then your motivation is ruined by the interruption, eh? Really I had all day to waste, so I didn't need any motivation but I just laughed like what he said was so true and funny and then said something cheesy like, "Yeah, but I'm going to push through." What a loser.

dear stranger on the internet, we should be friends

Mi papi chulo is in San Diego until Tuesday. This is really traumatic for me because I live in a city where I have no friends. So I've just spent about 3 hours reading strangers' blogs. These are my friends. Like sometimes I fantasize about hanging out with them, but the problem is that they don't even know how tight we are. I mean, they don't know I exist. #sad.

reflections on marriage

Eugenio and I are two months from our year anniversary. Despite my desire that we argue more, we're still going strong. Yay us. In commemoration of our being legally bound together until we're not, imma post reflections whenever they strike my fancy.

I just cleaned the bathroom so this one looms over my mind:

1. All of those dark, curly bodily hairs littering the porcelain eventually fade into the background.

2. Regular housekeeping is advised.

fashion face off

I'm no fashionista but my husband is un poco loco. This hombre who wears a gold chain and shirts that are borderline Ed Hardy says he dresses better than me.

Me: I can't believe you think that!

Husband: It's not that I think that; it's that it's a fact.

Me: Whatever! You're like Bruno. You're hilarious and confident but not self aware.

I'm either pointing out his delusion or my really, really poor fashion sense.

EDIT: If this sounds mean, note that I unabashedly wear grandma underwear from Walmart and happen to love Eugenio's necklace. I have literally (literally literally not Rachel Zoe literally) never seen him not wearing it. And Ed Hardy is pushing it. They're just shirts with questionable designs. I don't like to be mean. It messes with my self perception of being inherently an asshole but externally charming.

On Britney Spears

"She's my inspiration! She was in a mental ward, lost custody of her kids and let her body go. If she can get through all of that, I surely can pay off my student loans." - Elle

team lydia, what

I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time ever this week. My first Jane Austen book, actually. I'm not sure if that's surprising, but I feel like it might be considering how people wax poetic about her books. Or maybe that was a 90s thing? I'm what marketers (I know this because, for lack of direction, I majored in marketing) would refer to as a laggard, a loser who misses the boat most the time. I mean, I just joined twitter and all I want for Christmas is a web cam.

Back to the point. I read Pride and Prejudice and I liked it in the way that I like anything old timey with horses and carriages, but I had trouble following the story line with my post 19th amendment frame of mind. When the whole family was fretting over the whore of a sister Lydia for disgracing them by going off with that opportunistic asshole Wickham, whom they all hate, I thought her father and uncle were going after her to save her from marrying him. Like, I thought they loved her so much that, even though she's a twit, they wouldn't want her to marry that prick. When I realized they were running around the country to force him to marry her, I was like huh? Say what? I then turned to Spark Notes to remind me that back in the day it was unwholesome to hit it and quit it. Actually, it was unwholesome to just hit it period. So, the stupid whore Lydia was shaming the whole family by going off to elope, i.e. shacking up in hotel rooms along the way, with this dude that had no intention of marrying her anyway. He knew how to spot 'em. This character Wickham has stood the test of time. Lydia was stupid for thinking this guy really loved her, so I'll give Jane Austen that. But people fall in love super quick in this book/era anyway, so it's hard to blame Lydia for being so blind. Two people would be sitting in the parlor together barely making eye contact and the next day BAM! Engaged. As planned by the author, I didn't care for Lydia much at any rate because she was inane, but I didn't take kindly to everyone getting their knickers in a bunch over her harmless flirtation. Alas, Lydia was born in the wrong era. She would be living it up here and now. Her facebook page would display countless pictures of her all up in the club, flaunting bleached hair with boys pressed to her cheek, alcohol glasses in the air, in all her sorority face glory. Get it girl. Hopefully at one point she'd grow up and not be so vacuous.

Anyhoo. This isn't really a book review (clearly), and it wasn't supposed to be an in defense of Lydia post, though I'll go on record to say that I liked Pride and Prejudice despite the understandable, sign of the times, bourgeois morality. It was all early nineteenth century charming with dialogue and vocabulary that sent me googling, and with overriding themes that I could get behind. Speaking of morality, dialogue, and themes, it sure beats the hell out of that Twilight shit. (I probably just offended some people with that statement and I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have such bad taste.) What I'd like to point out though, which took me this many sentences to get to, is that I concurrently read Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life, in which she hilariously details her one night stands. So, class -- I dunno, I just got a vision of me reading this in front of a classroom -- what I'd like to say is this: the shameful whore of yesteryear can be today's smart and funny profiting heroine if she plays her cards right. Team Lydia represent.

honk if you love jesus

I've always wanted to honk at someone all like pinche cabron! But I don't do that because I think honking is rude, and everyone in Orlando honks at the slightest annoyance because people here are assholes, if I may so generalize. My favorite is when people with crosses and/or crucifixes dangling from their rear view mirror get road rage horn without a 'Honk if you love Jesus' bumper sticker in sight. WWJD, MF.

ANYHOO! Today I got to cross honking off my bucket list. It was my husband I was following who was sitting at a green light in the car in front of me like an idiot, but honking in public still made me feel like a boss lady. Really I could have sat at that green light all damn day because we were just going to Micky D's before taking his car to an auto repair shop, but I saw the opportunity and took it.

I know what you're thinking about this post. #keepittoyourselfnexttime

EDIT: After I pressed publish, a christian rehab center was the advertisement google suggested for this post.