Girl Talk

When I was thirteen years old, my parents got divorced. I will never forget the day I found out the horrible news. My mom and I were traveling to Little Rock to visit my grandparents. I didn't find this unusual, because we always made trips just the two of us. She always called it our "girl time". I never realized that "girl time" was the majority of the time. In my naive mind, all families behaved this way. Our family was perfectly happy. I had no idea my view of the world was about to change in this two hour trip. My mom told me the news in the car. I hated that she told me this way, and to this day, I wish I had been told differently. She told me they were getting divorced, and they just weren't happy. Nothing could be done to change this. I sat in the car and stared out the window, trying to let the news sink in and realize I was not dreaming. I didn't want to cry because I have always hated to cry in front of other people, especially when they are the reason. I wanted to get away and be by myself for awhile, but I couldn't. I was stuck in the car with her, forced to talk about this new development in my life. I asked few questions, mostly in shock. I changed the subject and became very upset if she tried to bring it up again. I never did ask many questions through the whole divorce process. As the years have gone by, I have put little things together and realized some of the problems in my parents relationship. However, I am still unsure of the whole story and probably will continue to be mystified. Ignorance is bliss.

ONLY THE MEMORIES RAMAIN

Anastacio Duran...my great-grandfather...an exemplary man…died of a heart attack, 1984.

Lorena Duran…my sister, my best friend…car accident, 1985.

Ventura Silva…my great grandfather…He loved women…he loved singing…cancer, 1996.

My grandfather…Pedro Gallardo…kind, fanny person…prostate cancer, 1997.

Refugio Duran…grandfather…my hero…prostate cancer, 2001.

Tony Robles…my best friend…a happy person…died of cancer at the age of 25, February 2002.

My friend Maria…very nice and smart person…she died two weeks before getting married…car crash, 2003.

Angel…my unborn baby…November 2004.

When we lose a loved one we have many questions and we start to understand the cycle of life at the same time. We accept that things will inevitably occur regardless of what we wanted or expected. Therefore I have no doubt that after death, to the great people are great places reserved. This place is a great gift and that gift is to remain in the hearts of those who have loved you. That means to be eternal and eternity is immortal...

Assholes and Gentlemen I've Dated

Jon Rodriguez – drummer for a local rock band, lived in a huge house – 10th grade, relationship lasted four months

J.D. (last name not remembered) – tall and awkward, met through friends – beginning of 11th grade, relationship lasted 10 days

Arren Doak – long blond hair and band t-shirts, friends with previous two guys and two guys below – 11th grade, relationship lasted four months

James Brady – gauged ears, one tattoo, best friends with Arren Doak – beginning of 12th grade, relationship lasted four months

Chase Davidson – played bass guitar for a local metal band, I threw up outside of his truck – relationship period unknown

Daniel Brown – two lip piercings and long dark brown hair, friends with Arren Doak – 12th grade, relationship lasted six months

Taylor Gaines – four tattoos and a mohawk – college, freshman year, relationship lasted 7 months

Phillip Lloyd – wardrobe consisting of American Eagle and Express, male model-esque – college, sophomore year, relationship lasted 10 months

The guys get better as time goes on, they change as I try to discover who I am.
There’s plenty of time to figure out who’s right for me, in the mean time, I’ll continue to figure out who’s wrong for me and try to enjoy the process.

Kali

It was in the infant stages of summer when me and my good friend were taking a break from summer school to go pay a ticket at the Fayetteville DPS. Great break right. As I was looking for the water fountain in the waiting area, the phone rang and told us that our good friend, Kali, had been in a horrible accident. Her suburban was on its way to Florida with six other friends. The driver fell asleep and hit the guard rail, flipping the SUV on its side and throwing the un-seat belted passengers anywhere it pleased. I could not believe what I was hearing. I immediately said a couple of prayers and then summoned everyone I knew to prayer through text messages. We met up with Kali’s best friends and embraced each other. Out of the car of seven, three died on the spot and the rest were taken to the ICU. We painstakingly found out that Kali was in critical condition with a fractured skull and bleeding on her brain. What a shot. A good friend whom I had hung out with not more that a couple of weeks ago was hanging on by a thread. My heart went out to her two best friends who we were trying to console helplessly. It was finally stated that she was stable, but in an induced coma. Things had been looking up and she was becoming more and more stable. Prayers continued. A few days later, I was hanging in my hammock on a sunny day when I got the call that she had died. My throat swelled and cut off any moisture from getting to my mouth. I just lied there in the hammock and looked up, trying to figure out Gods so-called perfect plan. Why the progress? Why the tease? Those kind of questions never seem to be answered.

A religious Memory

When I was about three or four, I remember my grandmother reading me books. This book had a lot of animals and a boat in it. I was fascinated by the water parting, stormy weather, and all the animals living on the boat. This story was cool in my eyes. My grandmother would read it to me everyday i was with her. Of course being so young, I didn't know it was a spiritual story. This story got me excited because of all the animals. The pictures were amazing. As i got older it started to make more sense. My grandmother took me to church with her. In Sunday school we color pictures that were from this book. This was when i started to realize what my grandmother was teaching me. I was being introduced to religion. On Christmas my grandmother would tell me the story about Jesus and how that was his birthday. She explained this in the simple way so i could understand it better. Being so young I didn't understand why people worshiped someone they could not see. As i got older my grandmother started ti read the Bible to me.
Around six or seven i started attending Brookhill Ranch. This was a Christian summer camp. I went there for years till i graduated. This was my first summer camp to attend. Although it was a church camp, they had normal activities. I always did go carts and horseback riding. I made many new friends and memories. In the mornings we would wake up and have a worship service and by that i mean we would sing songs. I really enjoyed the music so much. At the end of the week the staff put on the crusifiction.It was amazing to watch and it really opened up my eyes. The music is dramatic, the sound effects are real, the fire, and the whips. They had "Jesus" carry a real cross while beating him. They left marks on his body with blood. The staff just made it so life like. It was all coming clear now. All the stories my grandmother read me and told me. When the crusifiction was over it made such a big impact on my life. A staff member at the end comes up and talks to the campers for a few minutes. Then he ask if anyone would like to come up and ask for forgiveness. Being so young i didnt understand fully but when up there anyway. After leaving camp, i told my mom what i did. She then explained more about what forgiveness means. Now that i attended Brook Hill Ranch, i have a new outlook on religion. This really opened my eyes. I now am understanding better of what my grandmother was trying to teach me all along.

The Lost But Not Forgotten

My teammate's father...my first funeral...doctor's misdiagnosed...he could have been saved.

My grandpa...died old...lived young...the drink kept him happy...left us sad.

My grandma...hardest of all...quick and painless...I was there...she stays with me forever.

A pilot at my brother-in-law's Air Force base...flew the same jet as my brother-in-law... ordinary day of flying formations...one mistake...tragic ending...it could have been him.

A class-mate at school...racing cars at lunch...hit a mustang cobra...spun into a pole...poisonous snake took his life.

Dates and times-a blur...unclear.
Obvious fact- my undying fear.

Afterlife uncertain...no promise alay.
A question that remains with me today.

But these deaths play a role.
A motivation for me.
Leave my heart with a hole.
But help me see all I can be.

Life...so short...often unknown.
It must be lived...as these deaths here have shown.

A Trait of Virtue

I bit the inside of my lip and held my keys tightly in my hand. “Breath Molly,” I coaxed myself with determination to hold onto any small strand of patience I had left. Ten minutes had passed, and clearly I was ready to go. I knew she was hurrying. I knew she was aware of my frustrations. I knew she didn’t stall in any effort to irritate me. I knew all of this, yet my inability to be patient for any long period of time was overtaking me.

Impatience lay engraved in my character and like a toxin it swam freely and continuously through my veins. At times, my senses held me down in my concepts of right and right, and orientation of time and space. My senses played the role of a voice of reason and were the anecdote to my disease of impatience.

I have always lacked an understanding of where my great inability to sit still, my constant need to be on the go, and my fidgety nature have stirred from. Surely I did not attain my uptight mannerism from my dad who holds a “hang loose” attitude on life. And my mom, although more structured in her schedules than my father, does not remotely compare to me with my need to pick up and run.

Maybe on a deeper level, my lack patience is a virtue rather than an inconvenience. Although many times my impatience has landed me in arguments with friends and family, it has also proved a beneficial aspect of my life. Like a driving force, impatience provides me with a strong want and desire to achieve, attain, and succeed in every aspect of my life. Maybe this trait of impatience, though it holds flaw-like qualities is really a blessing in disguise. My impatience, though sometimes a pain, continues to be a driving force in my life and is a quality that pushes me to be all I can be.

Sugary Orange Juice

I screamed at her because her title meant "protector" and she had let the ravenous carnivores gobble her up. I couldn't stop crying. The girl, whose evil, man-eating parents had dropped her off on my door and labeled her "roommate," had needed my help for months. I bought her food and gave her the only hug she'd had in four years. I promised her nothing would happen. She had been kidnapped back and our pseudo-mother entitled "dean" refused to stop it. I couldn't understand why she let them take her. I yelled while the tears flowed. I knew the yelling should have stopped, but I didn't like to break promises. I yelled until I had to stop. I had to save the life of a stranger while a person I loved rehashed her past suicidal thoughts.
I was in the Blood Mobile with a needle in my arm when my world went dark. I woke up and my brain recalled what I hoped it wouldn't. They all asked me stupid questions and forced sugary orange juice down my throat. I was not thirsty, I was not hot, and I was not interested in talking.
I called my mom and for the first time, I actually asked her to visit me. She left the house then and arrived in an hour; she knew that the kidnapping had broken me. Too many stressful months spent trying to protect myself were shattered when I couldn't protect her too.
"Momma," I squeaked out of my throat, "I'm not okay."

Redneck

If redneck were in the dictionary, it would be saddled between "red meat" and "redo".
My mom married a redneck. He is a true, raccoon shooting, camouflage wearing, Busch beer drinking, Skoal chewing redneck. I was in shock. I was traveling when I received her letter with a photograph. There stood the redneck, in his stiffly ironed Wranglers, thin polyester plaid shirt with fake pearl snap buttons and his rat tail ponytail showing over his shoulder. He had his arm around my mom. Behind them, my brother and his wife stood somberly as witness to the day.
Beyond the shock of what I considered to be a poorly constructed choice on her behalf, I quickly realized that if I wanted my mom in my life - he was now a part of it. Slowly I began to swallow the impact of the newness of hunting wildlife - what it felt like to have a skinned, but otherwise in tact, deer hanging in the carport. And how you can spit on someone when they make you mad. And you don't have to take off your muddy boots when you come in the house. I felt as if he were the un-training of all the values my mom had taught us - her children.
Dirt and oil replaced the scents of a simple single-woman. In-bred dogs mingled among our surviving childhood cats. A spittoon sat on the kitchen cabinet among wild mushrooms, cigarette packs and tattered work gloves. I once counted all the curse words he muttered in the span of an hour. On a secret piece of cardboard, as his conversation carried on, I made little tick marks next to the letters "sob", "b", "ah, "s", "mf", gd", "f" and "h".
In time I have learned to adapt to his rough cluelessness. I have turned his actions into art and his reasoning into science.
If redneck were in the dictionary, the definition would begin "goddamn son of a bitch".

Incorrect

"It looks like a nuke-u-ler bomb got dropped on this place," I hear someone say when they are looking damage from the recent ice storm. I cringe.

Mispronunciation bothers me. Incorrect grammar bothers me. Incorrect punctuation bothers me. They don't just bother me, they kill me.

The internet is the worst place for English language errors. Facebook statuses are terrible. At midnight, I'm browsing recent status updates, and this is what I find: "[name deleted] thinks your getting fat; haha lolololololol."

First of all, there's the obvious confusion of "you're" and "your." Next, this Facebook user should probably be turned in to the authorities for semicolon abuse. Finally, what is the repetition of "lol" supposed to mean? "Laugh out loud out loud out loud out loud out loud?" It doesn't make sense! I lean over my keyboard and cry for a while, and eventually I decide that I can't change the world. If she wants to butcher the English language, she's just making herself look like an idiot.

The next day, my professor hands a paper back to me that I had written the week before. One sentence is circled: "The affect of this is to increase the validity of the author's main point." I don't even have to read his comments to see what is wrong.

You confused "affect" and "effect," Tyler? Really? You are an English major, after all. I slip out of class without anyone seeing me, and I duck my head as I pass people in the hallway. How embarrassing.

Eventually, I'll have to figure out that no one is perfect.


[Author's Note: I intend for this post to be my post for last week. I had this piece written, but I kept forgetting to post it. Also, thanks to apostropheabuse.com for the image.]

Get out of the water

I use to watch the discovery channel all the time. As a kid my favorite week was shark week because the discovery channel was all about sharks 24/7. They were my favorite animal and i loved learning about them.
In about ninth grade though i was in florida at the beach and was about to swim out to the sandbar to look for sand dollars. It was a very sunny day and I noticed they had the double red flags flying, meaning dangerous water. They never fly double red flags except during hurricane season so i figured it must be a mistake. I went in my with little brother, sister, and our friends. We swam about 30 yards out to the first sandbar no problem and started finding sand dollars as usual.
About 30 minutes later A beach police truck pulled right up to the water and started waving his arms. I heard "Everyone out of the water, SHARK!". Needless to say i started swimming for shore as fast as i could and was trying to throw my siblings forward as i swam. That was the longest swim of my life. When we reached shore, in between gasp of air, the police man told us how 2 miles down the beach a girl had been attacked and killed by a bull shark out at the second sandbar. I felt very lucky that i hadnt been two miles down the beach earlier that day.
We left to go home the very next morning but the scariest part of the experience was what we heard happened the day we left. Some family friends who were staying an extra day saw some bull sharks swim by the exact same spot on the sandbar we had been the day before.
Now whenever i watch shark week i think less about how cool the sharks are and how bad it would be to meet one up close and personal. I have yet to ever go back out to a sandbar while at the beach since that day.

Irritating People

I had a roomate that never payed our bills on time. I was kind to her still paying her half of the bills even though I didnt even live there. I moved home for the summer, was offered a good paying jobjob for college students. So I told her that I would be moving home in May to take the job. I asked her did she want me to take the bills out of my name, because when i came back in August i would be moving in a one bedroom apartment. She told me that it was ok that she would take care of the bills and pay everything on time.

So I came back one weekend to visit in June. She had movied her boyfriend in , and our apartment smelled like moss balls, and was really messy. So I instantly started to clean the apartment and put things back into place. Knoiwing that i haven't stayed there in the apartment since May. Me and messy do not get alone well with me. So after i cleaned i checked my mail I had late bills with shut of notices. I had never recieved a shut off notice before, I pay all my bills on time. So I knew it was time for me to get those bills out of my name. I set down for a minute to get my thoughts together. I felt like i had been nice enough, I set down and talk to my roommate and told her i was taking the bills out of my name. She was very upset, I told her that it would be good anyways because when she movied in her one bedroom she would already have them in her name. I gave her five days to put the bills in her name. It would look good for me when I got ready to move in my one bedroom. So I guess we irritated each other, and she changed her number and told my friends dont give it to me. So we both learned some valuable lessons from having roommates.

Irritating People

One of my biggest pet peeves is dealing with lazy people.  I become extremely annoyed when I have to be around someone that is content with leading a completely unproductive life with the satisfaction of doing nothing.  He or she will think of any possible way to get out of taking on the responsibilites they have been handed in life.  Typical of this type of person is to place their responsibility onto another person without considering if their friend has the time to pick up another task.  The only concern of this relaxed individual is to get out of doing his or her work.  Some people tend to become hypochondriacs when laziness takes over their lives and this bothers me the most.  I loathe when people claim migraines, stomach flus, bronchitis, or whatever it may take to be freed from their unappealing duties.  I once had someone call me to work for them because they had a migraine, but insisted on laying in the tanning bed before going home.  I believe the bright lights and intense buzzing sound would make any migraine extensively worse.  This trait in a person seems to go hand-in-hand with another characteristic that gets under my skin, which is selfishness.

Another pet peeve of mine is when people only consider their own thoughts and feelings with disregard to anyone elses.  They will break promises if the deal no longer holds their immediate interest.  Selfish people will take from the deserving to get a step ahead.  They usually try to figure out the easy way to move forward in life, even if it is at the expense of others.

To sum it up, I am annoyed with the person that calls in sick at work to go to a party or have dinner with her boyfriend instead.  I am annoyed with the person that says meet me at twelve and cancels at eleven forty-five for no feasible reason.  I am annoyed with the person that takes so freely but never offers a hand.  Ultimately, I am tired of how society has promoted these characteristics and labeled them as "taking time for you" or learning to "love oneself".  The reality of this message is to put one's self before others, which is not a lesson to be taught.

Marie Therese Burke

I am six years old at my birthday party. My theme is The Lion King, all my napkins and plates either have Simba, Nalla, Timon, Pumbaa, or Musfasa spread across the front. My guests are first grade classmates from my school, Edison Elementary, but there three special additional guests who do not go to school there. My best friend Margo is the first, she attends kindergarten at Hawthorn Elementary and Kelly, my cousin, is also in first grade, but goes to school with Margo at Hawthorn. She and I grew up together, I was really sad when she moved from across the street a couple of months ago. The third guest is a weathered and winkled; she has sweetness in her eye and her denture filed smile is pure and genuine. I’m sitting up on her lap, proud that she is my grandma. She smells flowery as I rest my head against her chest and hug her. She has given me a wiffle ball bat and ball for my birthday. I act as if it is the best present I have opened, even though I hate baseball.
I am eight years old Kelly and I stay back from everyone else in your family. I read a poem from pink and green journal. I had gotten it from a trip I took to Libertyville not too long ago; I did not think I would be back so soon, especially not for this. Soon we repeated the poem as a song, we sing to the grave stone. It has intricate carvings of coco-pellies, moons, suns, and designs on it. My uncle, John, took this job as the most important he has ever had. He created this own mother’s head stone. Kelly and I do not cry because we know she is happy wherever she is and we know she would want us to enjoy life, celebrate her life instead of wallowing in her death.
I am nineteen years old sitting in a brightly lit with gold Catholic Church, it is at a missionary in Los Angeles. The pews we sit in are old and weathered, but outside it is warm for a December day. A tall thin women follows girls in gold, she is in a long flowing white dress. Her name is Maureen, my cousin. She is the first of the cousins to get married. The entire family is there to watch this monumental event take place; it is the first time the entire family has been “all” together. We all think about what really brought us here, and we know our grandma, mom, mother-in-law was the one. She brought us together with her love and with what she distilled in all of us. It has been eleven years, longer than I knew her, but on this day that all of us together I miss her. I know she is proud and smiling down on us.

Knees!

Although this isn't my phobia, it is probably the most interesting phobia I have ever heard of.  One of my best friends has had a knee phobia since high school.  She says she doesn't know why or how this phobia came about, but when we were in high school her phobia was a consent form of entertainment for our group of friends.  

I don't think she knew what she was getting into when she admitted to us about her "problem" with people touching her knees, and asked us to avoid contact.  Of course to a group of 17-year-olds you might as well have said, "I love it when people grab my knees!  Go ahead, touch them!" That is when the torture began.  I don't think a day went by without one of us trying to see if we could touch her knee without her noticing.  When we were really bored or feeling malicious someone would start in, "Hey do you know what would be awful? If someone tried to take out your kneecap with a spoon!"  Which would cause her to jerk into the fetal position and cover her ears, as we all start discussing forms of knee torture.  At parties sometimes one of the guys would pin her down as someone else would proceed to grab her knees.  

Looking back on it now she probably should have pressed charges or gotten new friends. But without our "help" she probably would be in some mental institution in a straight jacket trying to fight off the people in her head that are attacking her knees.  But fortunately the last time I asked her about it, it seemed as though she had come to terms with her knee problem and coping quit nicely.  Now that I think about it we did her a favor, we were kind of like her form of rehab.  Maybe that is all a person needs to do to get rid of their phobias is to have good friends that will just torture the phobia out of you.  This could be the next Oprah special!