POST HASTE.

Free

After having indulged in the most fancy dinner of my life the night before I get up out of sorts, guilty and uncertain and thinking of McDonalds. I go by my parents' and talk about work and politics in an unusually short visit and then leave. I feel fidgety, alone. I have no plans today no obligations, just freedom, free time and choices. There are signs outside the De Frank Gay and Lesbian Center celebrating yesterdays victory and I wonder how it will play out in the upcoming election. The day is hot, my sunroof is open I have virtually zero credit card debt. What could be better? What could make me happy?

I drive without thinking sometimes, flipping through my ipod or nano looking for the best song, for definition. I pull into McDonalds this time and cut someone off in the process. I'm hungry but I don't care what I'll eat, I'll eat anything possibly three of them the cheese and grease all the better. It's 7.21 I think that is a high price for brunch at McDonalds. I am embarrassed by this splurge my boyfriend must think I'm disgusting, maybe I'll go for a run or take a nap or buy some beer and nap later. I don't care.

As I pull into my driveway an SUV is blocking me just enough so I have to make a crazy wide turn, I am cussing, WTF is your problem? What is my problem? I just want to get home and eat and in five minutes it will be gone and I will feel sick and I will turn the fitness magazine over so that the bikini cover is facing down because they should always be facing down because why would I want to subject myself to such a ridiculous comparison.

I look to my left there is a man sitting on the small ledge of cement in our parking lot next to a big plywood sign painted "free." I think that's funny in an odd way but I cant stop thinking about him. In three minutes I have 15 thoughts. He looks like one of the little people in the yucatan selling faux reminders of a past life, when the gods controlled the earth and the land was the livelihood and soul of the community. I wonder if the sign has anything to do with him at all. Free. I see he has two bottles of Coca Cola one half gone and one full. The sun is hot and he is resting. He can't be waiting for the bus because the stop is down the block. He is dark like I was when I was seven and would go swimming when I was free. When time meant nothing. When the maximum amount of daylight hours were all that mattered. I get home and my bike is gone meaning my boyfriend is gone on my bike and I am glad because I can eat a cheeseburger guilt free and he wont know I ordered way too much food for one person and am planning to eat it all. I scarf down a cheeseburger and wonder where the nearest ATM is. I get in my car and go to Longs and buy an energy drink and get the maximum amount of cash back, 50 bucks. The man ahead of me is buying Just for Men Hair Color and with the coupon he has provided he ends up paying nothing, it is free. He doesn't take a bag.

I take my 50 bucks and get in my car and drive. The man is no longer sitting where he was, next to the sign so I have to be fast. I park right there and he is walking and I am holding the fifty bucks which is 2 20's wrapped in 2 5's. I try to hand it to him. At first he wont take it and then he does and I get in my car and he looks back at me and I'm not there.

Coachella

I am a purist, a solitary being and a stickler for personal space. I like a certain radius around me clear and I like my toilets free of turds and my tequila free of water. That being said, I had a good time at Coachella though most all of these rules were violated.

It's 1:30am on Friday night, we're driving in a Lincoln LS and like the geriatric people who love these cars I have just woken up from a nap. It was ten maybe twenty minutes but for the safety of myself and the driver I stay awake because I worry the driver may be as tired as I am. We've gone through our limited music selection, even listened to the Ming and FS album twice and now we are so close that we can see the craggy dessert mountains jutting out in the distance. We are going to La Quinta, we might go to the water park tomorrow or maybe just hang by the pool and tan however, this happens to be the same weekend as Coachella. A childhood dream of mine to one day make it here and we are here with no tickets. We are not going to Coachella.

As we drive by the palm lined cement walled communities on a straightaway that seems to go on forever we see signs directing traffic and cops pulling people over and Fischer Spooner is playing on the radio, the station is playing all Coachella artists from previous years and current and at this point I realize I will definitely regret it if I do not go to Coachella while being in such close proximity. I have to go.

First thing Saturday morning we go straight to the box office, it's 9:00am and already 100 degrees.

Tickets are 100 dollars each and still available.

We are going to see Kraftwerk, Portishead and Prince, back to back and on the same stage.

I'm wearing jean shorts, the sun is beating down, I am sitting in the trunk drinking a tall can Modelo, I feel young again. Like I did pre-partying for all those concerts I went to where the was built so high because in my planner I had written a daily countdown three months in advance to a show. My hair is black instead of purple and I can buy any merch I want although, I choose not to, still I feel young not far from the person who sat for hours at the front of the stage just to ensure a seat as close as possible.

Coachella isn't just a concert, it's an art and music festival so beyond the five stages of music there are installation pieces of random things and people who appear to be walking a very fine line between self expression and neo-raver. 120 Days is playing and all their songs sound the same. Two kids are sniffing coke off of a car key in front of us. I wipe the sweat from under my sunglasses and hope for a beer. At least I hope to god my temporary drivers license works. The Heineken band around my right wrist proves it does and 88 bucks and some straight tequilas later I have arrived. I am here. I am at Coachella. I am young again. The grass doesn't bother my legs and my jean shorts from Target are a perfect alternative to anything American Apparel of which I see so much.

In the misty, raver area people dance to house music, or techno there's a guy on stills who walks over my head, subsequently kicking me. There are people with water hoses who I avoid because unlike years prior I have makeup on and I would like it to remain somewhat in tact.

By the time Prince arrives on the stage I am tired of being sandwiched in the crowd, I have to get out into open air. Sheila E. is with him and they perform Glamorous Life and the day seems pretty much surreal. Prince rocks the stage like a modern day James Brown and he knows it.

The walk from the concert area to the car feels like miles, my feet are black with dust and I realize I haven't eaten anything since noon and I have consumed a lot of cheap tequila. I keep thinking to myself we just saw Portishead, Kraftwerk and Prince!

Coachella

Junot Diaz Wins Pulitzer

Diaz wins 2008 Fiction Pulitzer for his highly anticipated book The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  If you dont read, you should.

...and in the midst of life we are in death etcetera

Junot Diaz' Recent Novel "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" Slips Under My Radar

Junot Diaz' highly anticipated follow up to his 1996 book of short stories "Drown" came out in September 0f 2007 and somehow it got past me. He didn't call me up and say, "Hey Veronica, you wanna check out my fucking next masterpiece before it goes to print?" There were no articles that signaled his foray into the novel, not a peep.

Like many reviewers have stated Dominican born Diaz, like it or not, has become a spokesperson for the latino population. When I first picked up "Drown" I had no idea what I was getting into. The guy who loaned it to me was just like me, a fledgling writer with a strong belief in possibility. At that time I had read nothing even remotely similar.
He gave a face to the now, the poverty, sex, shame and various intricacies that we all lived through growing up American first but with a deep rooted concern for our respective cultures. To this day I read books with a critical eye and am always looking for the future in writing and so far I have only seen it in anecdotes and Junot Diaz.

Other writers have said he has become a bit of an oxymoron living the life of a writing professor at MIT while speaking about the Dominican diaspora and how it has affected the Dominican population. If that is the case than so be it, we need more honest voices for the millions of us that are searching but with no understanding of why.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw the book in its hard covered glory at Border's today. A review/my thoughts on Oscar Wao to follow.

I Can Die Now | Radiohead Covers The Smiths The Headmasters Ritual

Cool Kids Behind the Clipse Curve | A Lesson in Irony

It appears that The Cool Kids have ripped off the entire Clipse style, from the minimal beats to the clothes to the lyrics daring people to copy them. Funny thing is Cool Kids fail to realize the you can't emulate irony with more irony. Mr Me Too is a timely track that reminds listeners, much like the youth exploiting 90's culture the Cool Kids are mimicking a sound only a few years old. Not cool.

Cooler Than You, Cool Kids

American Boy | Estelle and Kanye

I've been listening to this catchy song a lot lately and have subsequently checked out more of Estelle's tracks.  Wait a Minute (Just a Touch) is another song worth listening to. Her vibe is upbeat but not cheesy and her style is on point.

Dream Deferred

10:04 pm on a Sunday in March the bitter truth about the true droll nature of day to day existence dropped down upon me. Not in the normal way, in standard depression but in the way that everything seemed minimized, ridiculously tiny and already done. I cried for maybe four minutes thought of the beauty in Langston Hughes poem "Dream Deferred" that I had somehow missed before because I had never actually experienced the truthful tearless and solemn sadness of the acceptance the conceding one's life and hope to chance. Is letting go of one's dreams the ultimate failure, a self inflicted deceit?

It's 10:11 and I can think of a handful of things I can do right now to take my mind off things, I can take a Tylenol PM and doze into a heavy sleep, I can compose garish and self absorbed blog posts about the new songs that I like until the reality of what I am feeling is sufficiently buried or I can finish this book I am reading that may most likely spark the cycle all over again because the truth in words scares me.

The evening news today was a repeat of Saturday making it seem like no time had passed. I have to look at my cell phone screen to be certain because that little black piece of machinery never lies it is connected to satellites.

I am sitting where I was yesterday and my gray cat was too, listening idly to the tapping. The gratuitous tapping that I do everyday. Typing words into fields and playing games with their value. I laugh sometimes at their misuse and find it odd that I care to even notice. This must mean something, right? But process of putting inaction into action is another story and that one is untold. I suppose believing in oneself would be the first step. And that sounds so cliche and self-help to me that I can't avoid smirking. If I read these words somewhere else I would criticize them into non-existence, until they were nothing.

The beautifully serene days everything is visible until everything reminds me of dreams escaped, chances passed and ability shrugged off as luck. I can only hope routine will guide me.

The two words dream deferred have grown to mean more than the 50 words of the entire poem. Dream. Deferred. My stomach turns just contemplating so many smiles and images just dried up and rotting.

It's 10:29. The ends of good books always do this to me, never fails, all these memoirs where the writer does not come out unscathed but still manages triumph. Finds that courage inside that tells them their stories are worth writing. I read the about the author blurb and always scan for similarities between myself and the authors, so far I have found none. Somehow I remain hopeful, think the next book might be the one to spark whatever it is that is inside me, maybe years later I will meet the writer of the book that inspired me and thank them at a literary luncheon where I am the guest speaker. I sit here typing because I believe in something. At this point the tapping has put my cat to sleep she is stretched out long haphazardly in the middle of the hall. She may need to get used to this, this new routine. I'm going to finish the last 20 pages of book I am reading. I might come back to this chair and this tapping tonight too. If I do I do, If I don't I don't.

Multi Tasking It's Easy!

These utensil/pen caps are what we need in the office to shrink our carbon footprint as it were. Provide a set for each employee per quarter and stop ordering the disposable, plus they can take notes at the company lunch. Watch the efficiency soar!