Sweet Nothings

My ambivalence towards my homeless brothers and sisters continues.

This morning I sat down on the subway, excited that another inspiring day at my beloved job was beginning. At the second stop an individualistically dressed man entered the train with several bags full of carefully separated sheets of newspaper. "Anyone got some change?" he implored an apathetic crowd of workers. He repeated it several times, but he was cruelly rejected. Then, in a propitious twist of fate, he sat down next to me. Now I have not been endowed with a very strong sense of smell, but within seconds I was dry heaving. Although the girl on the other side of him sprang up and ran away, I thought that that would be rude so I sat firm, as my nostrils were assaulted with stench reminiscent of a Civil War battlefield. I stared forward, trying to take myself on a metaphysical journey far, far away, when my reverie was interrupted. Gently, like a caress, a voice whispered into my ear, "Got some change?" My ear was moist from the humidity of his breath. I quickly gave him 30 cents and fled to another car when we stopped. I now know the limits of my generosity.

In Which Miss Jill Strives to Add the Word "No" to Her Vocabulary: Part 2

Last month I when I was visiting teaching* I asked the timeless question, "Is there anything that I can do for you?" I had only had an affirmative response to that question once in my life-this crazy girl said, "Yes, please, I would like to talk about my crush." Three hours later I was still there, and she was flipping through a modeling portfolio showcasing him as a shirtless fireman.

Years later, little did I know, but I was about to be hit by a second request. "I'm moving Saturday and I need some help," said "Mary," my visiting teachee. "Sure, I'd love to help," I replied naively. Unfortunately, manual labor is not my forte, and I quietly questioned if I would be the best person to have around at a move, but my heart was in the right place.

Saturday rolled along and I while I was at a study group, I received a text message: “Is it ok if we move at 3 instead of noon?” I was horrified because I wanted to get a manicure, but I realized that that was a lame excuse and Mary is really nice, so I assented.

When I arrived, I was excited to see that I would be hauling a mattress for nine blocks. "Don't worry, we can take the bus." As we stood at the bus stop with a twin mattress gently cradled in our arms, I quickly pondered my extreme dorkiness. When the bus arrived, we casually entered the bus, pretending like our cargo was perfectly normal. We lasted for one stop and then the bus driver yelled, "y'all need to move back and put that mattress in the upright position." As we obeyed, people openly pointed and laughed. Believe it or not, I don't think that that has ever happened to me before.

After what seemed to be an interminable 8 blocks, the freak show ended and we got off. After the mattress was safely placed in her new apartment, I offered to pay for a taxi because I realized that carrying all of Mary's earthly belongings up the street in shifts was not part of my ideal afternoon. We lured a taxi to her apartment building and he waited as we carried everything downstairs, with his meter running. After laboriously stuffing everything into the trunk, we sat down in the taxi and relaxed, relieved. "I might just have time to get a manicure," I thought happily.

But the fates were not smiling down on me that day. As the cab driver attempted to drive away, the car sputtered and died. "Sorry ladies," he lamented. "Find another cab." As I gasped, heartbroken, he said, "You owe me $9.50 for waiting." Against my own better judgment, I ponied it up as a cacophonous traffic jam developed behind the deceased vehicle (I realize that that decision is controversial).

We finally found another cab and I took it home after we moved everything, which translates into about a $30 total loss. And then I was canonized.

* Visiting teaching is a Mormon thing where everyone is assigned a few girls to visit every month. You normally share a message with them, gossip and see if they need anything.

The Best Face Money Can Buy

Yesterday morning I went to my favorite store, CVS, because I wanted to get a mud mask. Unfortunately, the inventory was kind of high on hair relaxer and a little low on spa items and I failed. Dejected, I got in line to buy some gum and was dismayed to see my arch nemisis clerk at the register. She has three puffy braids and only two multicolored teeth in front and I'm not positive that she is working at full capacity. She is super slow and yells indiscernable advice in my face and I try to avoid her at all costs. However, yesterday, we had a tender heart to heart.

There is a People Magazine special with celebrity makeovers on newstands right now and as I approached the register she asked, "Have you seen this makeover thing?"

Miss Jill: Yes.

Two Tooth: Did you notice that Oprah used to look like Michael Jackson?

Miss Jill: Ummmm.... the 80s were hard for most of us.

Two Tooth: After I saw this magazine I ran home and asked my parents for a makeover for my birthday. They told me no, so I've started asking everyone I know. I'm going to look like Beyonce.

Miss Jill (thinking that $25,000 of dental work might start to tip the scales in her favor): Yeah, I think that is probably true. Good luck.

So, I'm curious on people's opinions. Can money buy attractiveness? Looking at Ashlee Simpson would tell me yes, but looking at Donald Trump's hair would tell me no. And here's a second one: if you had unlimited funds, what superfacial investments would you make?

Walk Around the Neighborhood

Happy Birthday Big Willy!

Sorry for my brief hiatus from blogging. I just lost the passion for a week.

My dad's birthday was last Wednesday, during the blogging hiatus. To commemorate the occasion, here are a few tidbits:

* When my sister and I were in elementary school, we were really active Girl Scouts. During cookie season, our troop set goals for cookie sales, which should not have been daunting for girls who enjoyed a monopoly of the Mormon market. However, things didn't go so well and we were stressed, so my dad bought so many boxes that we were eating girl scout cookies out of the freezer for months. Best year ever.

* I used to be really embarassed when he paraded his "Orgullo mexicano (mexican pride)" shirt around town and blasted mariachi music, because our family looks like the Third Reich's finest and I thought that Mexicans would think that we were making fun of them. Then I matured into an adult with a Che shirt.

* Every summer my dad would torture us by making us learn how to play sports. Believe it or not, Jr. (my sister with a prom do') and I grew up doing ball handling drills. I remember my dad offering to pay me a $1 if I jumped over a stick a certain number of times in a minute. I haven't incorporated those skills into my daily life.

And finally...

Traits That I Inherited From My Dad
* Massive forehead (so big that it should be called a fivehead)
* Constantly talking to strangers
* Really loud voice (i.e., "if I have to listen to that blowhorn voice for five more minutes......" -random kid on a college roadtrip who didn't find me as entertaining as I find myself)
* Reading travel books -we are the only family on the block with 25+ Mexico travel guides

Unbeweaveable

I promise that I'm not going to make a habit of posting news stories, but I'm sorry, weaves are funny. Thanks to my pal Jojo for bringing this to my attention.


KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Briana Bonds was complaining of a headache Thursday, but police say her tightly-woven hair weave kept it from being much worse.

"I believe he was trying to kill me, I think he was on something," said Bonds.

Authorities were called to the Country View Market, 5802 Swope Parkway, around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Arriving officers found Bonds there. She told police she had pulled into the market and saw 28-year-old Juan Kemp, with whom she had recently ended an eight-month relationship with, inside a car there.

A second man came up to the Bonds' window and told her that Kemp still loved her, an incident report filed by the Kansas City Police Department said.

Bonds told the second man “I don’t love him.”

At that time, Bonds told police she heard gunshots and saw Kemp walking toward the back of her car firing a handgun.

"He fired four or five shots at me, you don't shot at someone you say you love," said Bonds.

Bonds sped away in her vehicle as her back window shattered, police said.

She returned to the scene a moment later to witness both suspects leaving in their vehicle.

Officers found a spent bullet in Bonds' hair and said her tightly-woven weave likely protected her from a more serious injury.

"I now believe the weave paused the bullet, and didn't let it go any further. Really I think God was in my passenger seat. He protected me," said Bonds.

Bonds was not seriously harmed and refused treatment at the scene.

Kemp and the second suspect were both taken into custody.

Kemp was charged Thursday with domestic assault and armed criminal action.

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/mostpopular/story/Cops-Hair-Weave-Stops-Bullet/x6Lq5NPwxUSMhiY0QSyqRA.cspx

The Annual Bronx Renaissance Fair

NYC arrow victim thought it was a baseball

Denise Delgado-Brown, who was hit in the stomach with a 30-inch arrow on Sunday in New York, told radio station 1010 WINS, "I thought that maybe somebody had hit me with a baseball or something," the New York Post says.

A St. Barnabas Hospital spokesman says she is listed in stable condition and scheduled to be moved from the intensive care unit later today.

The arrow struck Delgado-Brown, of Yonkers, on Sunday afternoon as she was dropping off fellow parishioners at a nursing home in the Bronx after attending church.

Despite a helicopter and ground search, no one was arrested, police said.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/03/new-york-arrow.html

Mormon Family Memories By Guestblogger T-Gass

Last time I had a guestblogger about EHarmony, people kept asking me when my romantic trip was. THIS IS NOT ABOUT MY FATHER, BIG WILLY. Thanks.


My dad worked for Snyder's bread and spent his whole career as a regional sales manager. Snyder's bread is a small subsidiary of Franz Family Bakeries, a company that serves Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho with fresh and delicious bread and other baked goods. As you can imagine, it was hard for a small company like Snyder's to compete with a national powerhouse like Wonderbread.

One of my dad's jobs was to periodically visit grocery stores where his employees delivered bread to check out the inventory, etc, and make sure they were doing a good job. I loved going with him to do this errand, it made me feel important and helpful. It was a regular occurrence to arm ourselves with pocketfuls of toothpicks before we left the house. When we got to the grocery store my dad would do his job of counting the loaves, and putting the oldest loaves in front, etc. Once he was done with that, it was time for me to help out. We would nonchalantly walk over to the Wonderbread, quietly draw out our toothpicks and start poking holes in the bread bags in an effort to dry it out. For a company that claims their bread is "Soft. Delicious. Nutritious," you can see that having dry, hard bread would be problematic.

After we were done sabotaging the enemy in subtle ways, we went on to straight out warfare. My Dad would ask me to test how soft the bread is and I would oblige by reaching out my little 6 year old hands and brutally mangle it, as if I were strangling a venomous cobra to save my life. We would do this until nearly the entire line of Wonderbread had been destroyed. I can honestly say that at the time I had no idea I was doing anything wrong. My dad had told me that we were doing everyone a favor, because Wonderbread was really yucky and he thought they would like Snyder's bread better. That seemed like a good enough reason to me. Of course, he had his own reasons. It was job security, which he needed to feed his growing family of 8 children.

I know that this story makes eating a grape before purchase or putting back a broken yogurt container that you dropped seem rather innocuous, but some good came from all this too. Those trips to the grocery store with my dad made a real impact on me, it is one of the very few things I can remember doing with just him and me. To this very day when I go to the grocery store and see the white bread bag with multi colored dots I have to fight the urge to give it a good squeeze.

Don't Be Haitin' (spelling intentional)/Geriatric Restraining Order

There are two countries in this world that I am less than enthusiastic about: Haiti and Nicaragua. Nicaragua probably is my own fault, but I definitely hate Haiti for itself. When I was a student in the Dominican Republic we went on this hellish three-day bus trip that involved rat attacks, someone shushing me and a girl desperately shoving ten candy bars into her mouth. Part of the tour involved driving over the border into Haiti straight into a quaint market place. We were super excited to see what native handicrafts the locals would be pedaling and joyfully leapt from the bus. Our elation quickly turned into disgust, when we realized that these people were selling items donated for economic relief from the United States. I wasn’t sure if cans of generic green beans were in the travel budget.

A woman offered my illustrious friend, the Aging Stripper, some Walmart Keds (ok, I’m not sure of the brand, but that seems good). She politely declined and as she was walking away, a strange sensation went up her arm. Later witnesses attested that as she was walking away, the woman delivered a swift uppercut to her bicep.

Something similar happened to me this morning on the subway. I was calmly standing on the subway and an innocuous looking old woman delivered a left cross to my jaw. I staggered back in alarm and a few people rushed to my aid. Grandma ignored the din and serenely took a recently vacated seat.

Pura Mexicana/Ok, I Grew Up In Illinois

Sorry, some of you have heard this story, but it never gets old to me. I know that it is kind of long, but just humor me or I will disable your permission to read this blog.

Latin America is known throughout the world for raising institutionalized bribery to an art form. Its almost a cliché. I always laughed at the stories, but I never thought that I was the type of person to engage in such nefarious behavior. Unfortunately, I had once again overestimated my character, because in the middle of my second year of Honduras I became entrenched in a web of deceit that can only be paralleled by the plot of a telenovela.

As I often lament, I have a very difficult time refusing people who ask for my help. I am not bragging when I say this, because normally people exploit me for material and personal gain. As much as I tell myself to say no, it has yet to happen. This can be an incredible hurdle when one is playing the part of teacher/role model and students can identify that weakness within the first week of the school year. In Honduras, my personal kryptonite was tardy passes. All I had to hear was a heart-wrenching, yet very implausible story of teen misfortune, dating dilemmas or personal injury and I would suddenly look down and see my little hand writing an excuse pass against my volition. Although I could plainly see that they had not been attacked by the maids or trapped in a ditch, I comforted them and sent them on their way. It got to the point where I couldn’t stop and kids would run to my room from other parts of campus in humble supplication. Being a somewhat responsible individual, I knew that I had to stop this scam, so I told the students, “Under no circumstances are you to ask me for a pass. If you even ask, you will receive an automatic detention.” As I had never given a detention, they could have easily called my bluff, but the class remained silent.

I had a funny little student named Diego who was blessed with a sweet, placid face that could have sprung from the hand of Michelangelo. I always thought that his countenance was a true reflection of his soul until I came back to school after an extended rendezvous with the gastroenterologist. I told the class that I had missed them and a student asked me why I had been gone. Not wanting to entertain a teenage audience with details about colonoscopies and diarrhea, I just mumbled something about the stomach maladies that assaulted our part of the world. I saw Diego whisper something to a friend and I realized immediately what treachery was afoot. “Diego,” I queried. “Did you just say that I had SIDA (A.I.D.s)?” A look of pure panic filled his eyes and he sputtered, “Miss Jill, how did you read my mind? That is freaky!” After spending three years in a confined space with early adolescents, I have developed a 95% comment guessing accuracy rate. It might even be confused with lip reading capabilities. Unfortunately, most of those remarks could never be published in a family friendly publication, and even fewer could pass through my unblemished lips.

During the Christmas season we decided to have a class Secret Santa and I cut up the class list into tiny pieces (well, as small as possible when everyone has four or more names). I innocently handed them out, but I was distressed to discover that my actions were ruining everyone’s life. Because seventh graders are widely known for their tolerant and loving attitude towards their peers, I was shocked to notice their reactions. After reading the name, the kids yelled, “this sucks,” booed, or muttered an expletive in Spanish. All except for Diego, whose face bore a rapturous expression usually reserved for vandalism, destroying school property or torturing the Miss. Clutching the name joyfully in his hand he exclaimed, “I will buy a tanga!! (thong)” He was rewarded with grunts of pubescent approbation, and all I could manage in protest was, “Gross.” Later, as the class filed out of homeroom, Juan stayed behind.

“Miss Jill,” he said angrily. “This class if full of little devil perverts. They are ugly and I hate them.”

“Juan, honey,” I responded. “What did you think that middle school would be like?”

“I don’t know, but they are horrible. I feel like I should tell you what Diego’s paper said, but I don’t think that I can do it.”

My curiosity was piqued. “But Juan, I am your friend. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“I know, but still. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Do you want a piece of gum?”

“Yes, Miss. I guess that I can tell you then. I saw Diego’s paper and it said “Miss Jill.”

Suffice to say, through these incidents, Diego had lost some of his innocence in my estimation and he was obviously not a good judge of character. Besides a knack for making up malicious rumors and making inappropriate comments, he also had an aptitude for getting into hopeless situations. He constantly came running to my room after some ludicrous mishap or another, and passionately begged for a pass. I would usually say no the first time and then the dramatics would begin. Diego contorted his cherubic little face into a grimace and then he would burst into tears and lament the tragedies of his brief yet tumultuous life. I could usually make it through Act I, but by the emotional climax in Act 3 (passionate tears and predictions of expulsion from school) I found myself once again writing a pass to excuse half of the class period. Diego had such an exceptional gift that other students would bring him along whenever they wanted a pass. His popularity grew after every incident.

I usually did such favors as a result of my tender heart and my own haunting impotence, but I never asked any favors in return. However, as time went by, the local culture sucked me in and spit me out. On one particularly harrowing day, Diego ran into my class with a hunted, panicked expression.

“Miss!!! I need a pass.”
“Diego, what a pleasant surprise! Sit down.”
Diego started the crying act.
“Diego, stop right there. Doesn’t your family own Video Stars?”
“Yes, Miss Jill.”
“Do you have the ability to forgive late fees?”
“Uhh… I guess so. What does that have to do with anything? I am LATE!”
“Relax. You are always late. And you and I both know that it is going to get excused. How do you feel about taking back this video and forgiving a massive late fee?” Said late fee was a fine of about $40 USD on “The Sound of Music.”
“Sure. Can I have pass?’
“Of course, my friend. While you are in here, let’s talk about a French movie that I have been searching for.”
“I’ll get it by tomorrow.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Right after this transaction occurred, I congratulated myself for what could only be called a mix of ingenuity and sharp cultural awareness. But after a few minutes, I found myself alone in my classroom with only my overwhelming sense of guilt for company. Miss Jill, the moral compass for hundreds of innocents, could be bought for the price of an overdue video. I sat at my desk, despondent, playing scenario after scenario in my head. Incarceration. Deportation. Expulsion from the expatriate community. There were headlines from “La Prensa (the Honduran daily newspaper)” bouncing mercilessly through my head.

Thoughts of damnation racked my brain throughout the day, and after school I confessed everything to my co-worker, Mr. Dave. Sweat was dripping down my face as I told the reprehensible tale, which I finished with, “What if the administration finds out?’ Mr. Dave looked at me for a moment to see if I was serious, and then doubled over with laughter. “If the administration found out about this, “ he replied. “They would be excited. Every principal in this school would give you a high five for finding this resource, and then they would bring in all of their late videos.”

I relaxed for a moment, but I wasn’t convinced. There had to be a way to fix this sordid affair. And then it came to me. I would call Diego and tell him that the deal was off, but I had to find a way to do it without his parents getting involved. I dashed up to the sixth grade wing of the building and found Diego’s math tutor.

I tried to play it cool as I approached her desk.

“Hi Eva! How are things going?’
“Hi Miss Jill! Nice to see you. Things are going fine.”
“Well, the thing is, there is like this thing we are doing for homeroom, and I like was wondering if you had like Diego’s cell phone number, and it is like super important, because it is like totally school related.”
When I get nervous, my generation is exposed. Eva proceeded to search through piles and piles of post-it notes, and her efforts were narrated by, “Uhhh… don’t know if I still have that number… maybe I threw that away….hmmmm let me see in this other pile.” Nerves had turned my face vermilion, but she seemed oblivious to my plight.

“Ah! Here it is!” she cried victoriously. “But I’m not sure if it is Diego’s cell or his mother’s.”
Oh great.
“Thanks Eva, that should be fine. See you tomorrow.”

I rushed to the library, clutching the post-it note that would determine my destiny. I was too afraid to call it myself, so I handed the number to So Hyun, my Korean tutoring girl, with instructions to figure out who the number belonged to. Without hesitating, she grabbed the number from my hand and casually dialed and started chatting up the person who answered. Then, she handed it to me.

“Ummmm, Diego this is Miss Jill. How are you?”
“HUH???? Miss Jill, why are you calling me? That is so weird! AHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“Ummmmm…,” I stammered nervously. “ I’m just calling about what happened earlier today?”
“Oh yeah, I’ll take care of that as soon as I get home.”
“Well, about that. I don’t feel honest doing this, and I would prefer to just pay the fine. I don’t think that I could live with myself if I stole from Video Stars and…”
“Miss Jill!” Diego interrupted me. “This is so weird. First, a teacher called my cell phone. Then you are saying all these weird things! Why do you care about this? You are crazy. DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT!”
“But Diego, I seriously can’t go through with this.”
“Miss, I am eating right now. Goodbye.”
Click

The next day at school it was difficult to teach, because every few minutes a student shrieked, “You called Diego!” and everyone would explode into uncontrollable laughter. I laughed it off to look cool, but I was secretly embarrassed and ready to put the whole affair behind me.

It is probably a sin to give the church tainted money, but that week they received a penitent $40 contribution.

In Which Miss Jill Strives to Add the Word "No" to Her Vocabulary

As many of you know, I am the biggest pushover of the 21st Century. I think that people are surprised by it, because I can be really sarcastic and opinionated, but I am secretly a bleeding heart just waiting to be taken advantage of. Here are some examples:

Friend: People in the subways always have the same lame stories. Like, "I have A.I.D.s and my family disowned me."
Miss Jill: Oh! That story was so gripping that I had tears in my eyes. I gave that guy a dollar.
Everyone else: Thinking about how dumb I am.

Friend: And then there's that guy with the sign that says, "I'm deaf, please help me."
Miss Jill (I can't believe that I didn't censor myself on this one): Oh, I gave that guy money once.
Friend: JILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, I have a problem that I am going to have to give up due to the fact that my income probably qualifies me for public assistance. Unfortunately, this weakness isn’t new. When I was at BYU I received a phone call from a girl named “Maria” from church. She asked me if I could give her a ride to Lindon so that she could pick up her car, because someone was fixing it. Of course I said yes, and we set off a few hours later. As I approached the first Lindon exit I turned on my signal and she asked, “What are you doing?” I replied, “Going to Lindon.” She said, “Oh……. ummmm…. Did I say Lindon? I meant Layton.” This changed a time commitment of about 40 minutes to a time commitment of about 3 hours. “That’s interesting,” I said and continued driving (while thinking about homework that I had to do for the next day).

At least I had my favorite Shakira CD to keep my flagging spirits up. When it got to song number 3 “Moscas en la casa” I reached up to skip it, because I hate that song, but Maria grabbed my hand. “Please,” she said. “That song has special meaning for me.” About 30 seconds into it, I looked at her and noticed tears streaming down her face.
Miss Jill: Are you ok?
Maria: No, of course not.
Miss Jill: What’s wrong?
Maria; This song reminds me of Pepe, my ex.
Miss Jill: I’m sorry to hear that.
Maria (unprompted): We met at a UVSC dance and then we made out all night. The next day he hooked up with my friend Julia and never spoke to me again. I loved him.
Miss Jill: Ummm… sounds intense.
Maria: It was. I think that I will love him for the rest of my life. Moscas en la casa was playing when we hooked up, so I will always remember him when I hear it.
Miss Jill: Some kind of sage advice, but I honestly don’t remember.

Much later (I am a slow driver) we arrived at some shady Spanish auto place in Layton. Maria got out of the car and went in. About ten minutes later she got back in my car.

Miss Jill: What happened?
Maria: My car isn’t ready.
Miss Jill: Didn’t you call them before we came?
Maria: No.
Miss Jill: Laughing for 30 minutes.

I have to put my makeup on now, but there is a Part 2 waiting to be written that involves putting a mattress on public transportation. Stay tuned.

Pastime for a Lazy Afternoon

Thanks for telling me that I spelled my own name wrong in the previous entry. Nevermind, you didn't.

This post will not exactly highlight my street cred. A few years ago I had some co-workers/neighbors with questionable recreational activities. One evening I was at a friend's house next door and said, "It always smells so good at this apartment complex. Have you ever noticed that there is always a kind of sweet smell in the air?" She started laughing and said, "You are 25 years old and you can't identify the smell of marijuana?"

Ok, fast forward to today, when my roommate experienced my equivalent of winning the lottery. There is this crazy lady who lives next to the convenience store on the corner who I always hear shouting in the voice of Beelzebub. It is super creepy. Today my roommate walked past her and saw that she was lighting something. She looked more closely and realized that it was a crack pipe (this ties into the previous story because I sadly would not have known what she was doing) and that she had another crack pipe in her other hand!! How can you just double fist crack pipes outside of a convenience store at 1 p.m.????

In Which Miss Jill is Rewarded for Her Kindness to Homeless People

This will have to be fast, because I am at work. This morning I was coming up out of Penn Station, with this excellent book about Iran in my hand. As I rounded the corner, a homeless man rammed me with a cart of all of his earthly possessions. Said book flew out of my hand into a pile of mud. From now on, I will be keeping my loose change for myself. Have a great day.

Friends in Need/The Perfidy of Jason Mesnick

A friend recently wrote this loving tribute to me on her blog: "I appreciate you always taking time from your sketchy friends to be there for me." I couldn't figure out why she thought that she was the exception, not the rule, but I was grateful for the sentiment. That made me think about how much I've benefited from my "sketchy friends." Two stories stand out to me today:

One day my friend Tatiana and I were enjoying the tranquil waters of the Caribbean Sea. In the middle of our idyllic day, I felt a sharp pain and screamed in agony. Tatiana, concerned, helped me ascertain that I had been stung by a jellyfish. And no, I didn't urinate on myself. The moment of true friendship came when I found out that Tatiana initially thought that, because I was shrieking so loudly, I had been attacked by a shark. She stayed and helped me in perilous waters, risking her life.

Another such incident occurred yesterday as I was watching The Bachelor: After the Final Rose* with my roommate and my dear friend Lily. As a little background, I have a genetic predisposition to get too emotionally involved in television shows. I know this because every time someone does something embarrassing on t.v., my sister, Junior, and I hide our faces, too ashamed to look. That means that our experience with The Bachelor is about 95% audio. Everyone already knows that I accidentally prayed for Jack Bauer, but another time, after I watched the season finale of Season 3 of LOST (where Charlie meets his untimely demise), I had severe intestinal cramps for two hours. It is probably a good thing that I only watch three shows.

Anyway, last night's finale was just too much for me. The dramatic events touched me so deeply that I found myself hyperventilating for the second time that week (the first time was before speed dating, but that is a story for another day). My roommate, Alison, coldly said, “It’s just t.v. Calm down.” As I looked frantically for a paper sack to breathe into, I felt a comforting squeeze on my hand. Lily held my hand through the treachery of Bachelor Jason Mesnick and I was able to watch until the inane end (I took a picture of the handhold, but my razr phone camera made my hand look like it had rosacea, so you will not get to witness it).

I later found out that Junior spent those fateful three hours dashing in and out of the room, because she also caved from the pressure created by the brilliant producers at ABC. She had to read for two hours afterwards to calm down, because she was so perturbed by the heartbreak of Melissa.

* I am not endorsing The Bachelor by admitting publicly that I watched it this season. It is never going to happen again.

Does This Body Make Me Look Fat?

In the United States, weight is a sensitive topic-probably because 75% of us could stand to lose a few. However, I find that people in other countries are much more blunt. For example, when I was down in Honduras in November we were at dinner and one of the girls said, "Wow, I've really been gaining weight." Her friend replied, "Yeah, I noticed that." She must have also noticed the look on my face after she said that, because she said, "Haha Sister (she calls me that because we met a few months after she got back from her mission and maybe a little lylas), I know you hate that topic." Actually, I think that it is pretty funny, even if I'm the fat person in question.

When I was in Havana, a group of us were walking around and a man on the street yelled, "Too much McDonalds!" Fidel's censors must have missed a spot. I know that after that, every girl was checking herself out in reflective surfaces to see is she was the intended recipient of that comment. I have hundreds of stories along that vein, but I think that my point is best made by noting that at any given time, about 10 percent of my Facebook friends have the status "te amo gorditoooooooooooooo" (I love you fattyyyyyyyyyyyyyy).

Even though it may not feel great to be called out on your girth, 99.9999 % of the time there is no ill will intended whatsoever. They are just calling it as the see it. On the other hand, up here, if someone says something negative about your weight, it usually isn't in a spirit of love. A relative of mine was eating lunch with some girls from church and she said, "Wow I feel really full. I should stop eating." Another girl looked at her and said, "Yeah, you should. You have jowls." After this comment received a negative reaction, the girl started laughing and said, "Oh, did I say something I shouldn't have?" Of course, the victim ran home and examined her neck for a likeness to a bulldog, and was luckily unable to find any.