howdy

On Texas:
people are nicer in the south
i've never seen a facility like MD Anderson
Texas-size portions are not a good thing
Houston is a really rich city
the victims of Katrina are known as "the Katrina people we let into our area"
this is not a walking city
everything is air-conditioned
there are lots of trees (and cancer patients)
i want to go back to new york, NOW
the food here blows

i will be back home in Chelsea on Tuesday, i will go pick up my love Santiago de Dachshund, and i will be headed to PR for the month of august.
my mother has terminated treatment. we are going to PR to rest, if you will.

elba left new york
my summer has been "complicated"
i grew some balls

see you in september, i guess.

true blue

i love jorgito. especially because he sent me this.

i just want to say a big YOU ROCK to the lady at the county clerk's office who helped me out with my jury duty issues.

i no longer need to worry about missing jury duty when i'm in the great birthplace of our "wonderful" "president," mister W.

so the message is, even though W sent stem stell research to the toilet, and even though the middle east is in the middle of a third world war, and even though kim jon il is darth vader, LIFE IS GOOD.

holla back, brain cancer. i'm coming to get you. in TEXAS. (can you tell i'm excited to go to texas?)

dear fiona

so it looks like i'll be missing the Fiona Apple summerstage concert next week. i've been waiting to see her again for a bit, and i'm kinda sorta extremely crushed that i'll miss her. i had been planning on throwing myself on the stage.
however, since i will be in fabulous (?) Houston, Texas, i've decided to hold my own tribute to the great angry one from the radition center at MD Anderson. I, Cristina Castillo, vow to put on my gigantic earphones at the exact time when Fiona goes onstage, and I will play down her entire catalog. goddamit, no one will stop me from listening to the one i love.

things that make me laugh

1. Kathy Griffin
2. Dave Chappelle (and Ashy Larry and Charlie Murphy)
3. Jon Stewart
4. Media Matters (though it's really crying while laughing)
5. Santiago's obsession with vacuuming the floor.
6. conversations comparing street cred.
7. the movie "Kids" (also a crying while laughing moment)
8. my inner dialogues.
9. playing "i'm so emo"
10. thinking about the "When Puerto Ricans Attack" convention in Boston this weekend. i wish i could be there to videotape.

it's a hit

i wake up, begin my morning routine, which involves a trip to whole foods, and i plan my day.
the tone of the day is set after my first phone conversation with my mother. if today is a good day for her, it is a good day for me.
the past few weeks (perhaps even longer), it's been a bad day for her every day. which means my days are not so great.

the thing about challenges is that they test everything you ever believed.
do you believe you are healthy? let's do some genetic testing just to make sure. (appt for Jan 31st)
do you believe you are intelligent? numb your pain with substances a little more, why don't you?
do you believe you are merely taking a break? there is no taking a break from reality.
do you believe you are not alone? a picture of your day reveals a solitary brush stroke.
do you believe it will end up fine? well, has it been fine so far? didn't think so.

te conozco de antes

i really really really need to figure out exactly what i want from him. i need to decide this today. i need to take some fucking action. i need to stop following some patterns. i mean, i've broken my motherfucking mold 100 times this year. what the fuck is holding me back here? fuckfuckfuckfuck

my mom just said it's the apocalypse.

cause i got an A+ in my summer class.

i dont even know how that's mathematically possible. but fine, i'll take it.
thanks, mom, for believing in me.

equally depressing topic change, or, world's on fire

when i was a child i was into environmental issues for awhile. i say awhile, because as soon as i got a license i was on the road emitting harmful gases along with everyone else. before that, however, my godmother (this was back in the ol' catholic days of yore) was (and still is), an environmental activist who had spent decades defending a forest in the middle of San Juan, tying herself to fences in Vieques, and causing general green ruckus.

i've always looked up to this person. she first introduced me to Taoist Buddhism after the death of my father and the diagnosis of my mother a year later. she was peaceful, kinda crazy, and very aware of herself. she was my hero, and her husband was a father figure i desperately needed when i was 13.

i think of them now every day, not just because Jose, the husband, has saved my mother's life over 10 times in the past bunch of years, but because i have refocused my attention after watching "An Unexpected Truth." the fact that i am completely poor has really helped my anti-consumeristic views, but more than that i feel that a great way to channel my own internal struggles is to help someone else's. in this case i feel like i have a responsibility to wisen up.

i know we are kiling our planet. more than that i believe we have created a wasteful culture. we buy buy buy spend spend spend CONSUME. we give nothing back. we are focused on money and deceit and taking. take take take.

now that i have no money to spend on anything other than food and my roof, i do not miss it. it'd be nice to get a manicure occasionally, but i've found that i can do a great job myself. yes, i'd like some new shoes. but i have pairs upon pairs in my closet. a cute summer dress would be nice. but i'm wearing last year's H&M stuff instead.

i haven't broken any bones yet. i changed every paper product in my house with recyled. i no longer use my a/c unless it's late at night and i can't sleep. i unplugged everything i'm not using and i'm creating some compost for my plants.
i guess this is more for me than anything else.
gives me purpose and control, feelings i had long since lost.

break

The My Cancer essays on NPR have really aided me these days.
There is one called "The Choice" that made me completely break down and realize (or at least admit) the horrificness of current situations. Leroy Seivers talks about quality vs. quantity, of life. Wow.

Anyway, I find it hard to write about my everyday when my everyday is so ... um. Complex I guess.
I do not think I have a right to whine or bitch or be angry. Just in my work setting alone I see people with far more "complex" day-to-days. So on Wednesdays I get perspective. I remember I am but one.
It's still difficult I guess, and I think maybe it's time I stopped denying it.

Regardless, I just find it hard to write these days.

Meet My Wife

red eyes?

I thought I cried a lot during my Oprah Saturday Marathons.
But that's just because I hadn't had the balls to do Intervention Sundays.

Only the strong survive.

i can't believe i have City High on my iTunes right now.

i hold you all responsible for not notifying me of the full-frontal Peter Saarsgard nudity in Kinsey.
furthermore, you went a step further and kept the sex scene between that young whippersnapper and the love of my life, Liam Neeson, a secret.
this is a moral offense against Cristinianity for which you will all be punished accordingly.

live, from here

I'm back in New York.
The plane ride was typical. I listened to Cat Power albums, to see which songs had sounds I could reproduce on my guitar (limited skills, people. limited skills).
Instead of coming up with tabs, I unintentionally began rearraging the order of my favorite songs in my head.
Before I knew it, I had come up with a lyrical testament of the last 2 or so years of my life.
I'm linking to them simply because I desperately want to remember yesterday.
11 years of change.
11 years of going forward, backwards, forward again.
11 years of solitude.

So here is my Broadway musical, to the music of Chan Marshall, with a prologue by Jenny Lewis (i cheated).

Prologue:
Rise up with Fists
Act I:
Lived in Bars
He War
Act II
Could We
Back of Your Head
Half of You
Good Woman
Act III
Metal Heart
Empty Shell
Say
Act IV
Could We (reprise)
Keep on Runnin'
Living Proof
Epilogue
The Greatest

meh

i hate being in a house this big. it's lonely, the sounds freak me out, and i miss my pup psychotically.

i keep thinking i'll go back to new york on tuesday, finish my class, then come back to PR and stay the summer. that would require taking a leave from the hospital during the best of my rotations, but it may be what i have to do.

or maybe i will stay here now and take an incomplete in the class, plus the leave, and worry about all that later.
usually i can make a decision rather quickly, at least when it comes to my life, but because this requires me to essentially guess how much time i have to tie up loose ends in NY and then come back here before my mom gets even more sick, i really honestly do not know what to do.
she may make a random miraculous recovery, just like last year.
she may not.

how am i supposed to predict this? how am i supposed to know what is best for all of us? how am i supposed to know how i will perceive this decision AFTER it's all over?

mother effer.

in the meantime i sit here, listen to those damn frogs, and think.