Miss Belinda

Miss Belinda me enseñó
Que no se puede decir
"you double the paper"
Se dice "you fold"

Y también me enseñó
Que no se debe dejar nunca el árbolito de navidad conectado
Porque su vecino así lo hizo
Y su casa se incendió
Y cada vez que salía de su casa tenía que ver la casa quemada del vecino

Y una vez me encontré a Miss Belinda en el avión
Y luego, ese mes, saqué el promedio más alto de la clase.

Y una vez, Miss Mayte regañó a Miss Belinda porque estaba chiflando en clase conforme nos iba llamando para recoger el billete.

Y Miss Belinda nos contó como fue que el novio de Miss Mayte le dió el anillo: en una bolsita con piedras que dizque habían llevado a cargar de energía a una pirámide.

Y cuando Ivy se rompió el brazo, Miss Belinda dijo "naaah, vas a ver que no te pasó nada, seguro namas fue el susto"
Y al día siguiente cuando se enteró que se lo había roto se puso blanca blanca... Porque no había pedido que la mandaran a su casa...

Quizás es por eso que Ivy no tiene buenos recuerdos de Miss Belinda.

Pero yo si.

To all my pro-bullfighting future former friends

Well, congratulations on ruining our friendship

I may or may not recognize this as childish
but it doesn't matter

So much for talking about logical arguments
and Kant and Descartes
I don't know if I'll be able to do those things anymore

I don't think I should
Because if I did, it would mean that nothing happened
and something did happen

I'm angry

And part of that anger derives from the idea that I can't be angry at you for this.
That I have to allow everyone to have their own beliefs, their own likes and dislikes
but if that is true, why not be friends with pedophiles?

Where do we draw the line?

I know people would say "Well, the law is already drawing the line for us"
but if so...what about my own inner law? My own ethical principles?

And would you want to be my friend if I had had an abortion?
It is legal after all.

I will now choose to not be your friend anymore
and that hurts me

It is true that nowadays a lot of people are more offended about animal-right violations than "the atrocities that mankind does to one another".

I cannot end child sex trafficking.
I cannot impede child marriage from happening.
I cannot ban female circumcision.
I cannot stop world hunger.

I cannot force you to change your mind...
But I can stop talking to you, just to leave it clear that this IS a big deal.

It will hurt me if it turns out that, to stand up for this, I have to stand alone.

But this is where I draw my line.

Labels: Flexitarian

gay or straight

republican or democrat

prolife or prochoice

black or white

fat or thin

hardworking or lazy

pretty or ugly

smart or dumb

good or evil

and so on and so on...

Never has it bothered me that these terms exist because I've always understood that there's a whole spectrum between them. A spectrum in which I fall in about 98 % of the time.

Being in that spectrum meant to me that I needed to explain what my viewpoint on a particular matter was. To do that would require me to think of the issue at hand, understand it, analyze and compare different situations which could be related to it, and evaluate those situations and finally, decide how I felt about it. 

Like...it would force me to go full Bloom's Taxonomy on almost everything.

That's how I thought I was with eating meat too. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to completely remove it from your diet, I believe that having meat once or twice a month will do little or no difference when compared to not having it ever.

And... I felt very special about this, y'know? Like I had discovered the secret to happiness or soemthing becaus whenever someone was like 

EWWWWW ARE YOU VEGETARIAN?

I could always go like "No I'm not. If you want to have a barbecue for your birthday, that's fine. I can have a hamburger" 

but now, it turns out that they COULD very well tell me: 

EWWWWW ARE YOU A FLEXITARIAN?

And, you know? That's even worse! It sounds like you're a lame vegetarian! Like hypocrite vegetarian who just doesn't want to be vegetarian so that people don't look down on him.

How exactly does it affect you if I choose not to have any of the carnitas you bought?
I BROUGHT MY OWN FOOD PEOPLE!

Let people eat what they want to eat.
You do not need to label them.

Sometimes I eat meat, sometimes I don't.

And that is no one's fucking problem but my own.

Too

My therapist says I'm too hard on you.
My husband says I'm too self sacrificing.

I say I'm just too dumb.

Shareen and I in the new era

It makes me sad
that you and I
don't feel like us anymore.

I recognize the difference
I recognize it's not just you
and it's not just me
but it's something about the way we interact now.

When I talk to you I feel
like walking on a thread
I don't understand why
Maybe it is because I feel guilty for not having a clear plan about visiting you
But the truth is, you often make me feel
like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place
( o entre la espada y la pared pues)
because I don't want to disappoint you
but I don't want to ask my mother for money to be able to pay for an airplane ticket to visit you.

Especially because
I have no idea what's going on with my life
I dunno if I'll have to ask her for money later on
for things that have more of a life or death quality

I have forgotten how to talk to you
without always feeling clutched
How to tell you about what's going on in my life
and I don't understand why.

I am here writing this thing
because I love you
and I miss you
but sometimes I feel I don't know how to be friends with you anymore.