100 Things, Part Deux

Categories are great aren’t they?

Sailing:

26. I learned to sail when I was 23 years old.

27. One of my current housemates was in the same class (we knew one another before then.)

28. My first sailboat was a 26’ O’Day Daysailer.

29. Due to dissatisfaction with our landlady (also known as our slum lordette), my then husband and I moved onto said boat. Yes, very cramped living.

30. It took us no time at all (one blistery freezing winter in Santa Cruz, CA) to decide we wanted a bigger, more insulated, and sea-worthy boat. So we shopped around until we found “The Irish Rose.”

Odd things about me:

31. I have a “medallion,” well, it’s a box but what would you call it? A charm? Yea, a charm, which I was told has the old Irish pattern of an Irish Rose on it. I got it when I was 18, six years before buying a boat with the same name.

32. I bought the charm and many other wonderful and probably frivolous, as well as overpriced things while I worked at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California one spring.

33. My best friend from high school and I felt it was the best thing to do at the time. And it was, really.

34. I worked at the braiding booth and she worked down the lane at the juggling booth. We had two very different experiences.

35. I was told I had a soft touch, so I braided little girls’ hair all day in intricate patterns and decorated them with dried flowers and they gave me tips of fifty-cent pieces and/or shared their candy with me; my best friend had to teach drunk men how to juggle and keep them from getting too close to her.

36. We met a number of interesting people with whom I’ll bet she might still keep in touch with. I didn’t, except for one, and we stopped speaking recently, my X husband.

37. When I first met him it was at the costume check for the faire. He was in front of us and overheard us wondering what in the world I could get a job doing…he turned around and asked if I knew how to braid hair. My first 30-second impression of him was that he was as gay as the day was long, so it was safe for us to follow him to his “friend’s” booth. His friend was indeed his, a beer-brewer of the name of Pamela.

38. It took me a while to believe he wasn’t gay. I think his trying to get into the pants of my best friend was the final proof. She’d have nothing to do with him. Maybe I shoulda' taken the hint?

39. 12 years later we’re no longer on speaking terms; but it was an interesting experience to say the least.

40. I did get to experience over 6,000 nautical miles worth of sailing, coastal Mexico, a “crossing” and what it is to live and work on the Big Island of Hawai’i. As well as meet some super cool people, cruisers and non. So it definitely wasn’t all bad. I’d have to say the last year was horrendous, and one of 7 years of being married, well, it’ll all average out in the end, right?

41. I still own my very first car, a ’66 Mustang. It lives in my mom's carport in LA.

42. This is my favorite number. I’m a Douglas Adams geek, what can I say.

The Idiosyncrasies of being Mexican in the US:

43. What I was going to say before interrupting myself is, my father hates my 1st car. He does. I think it’s because I bought it without “asking permission.” I’m far too American. I earned the money, I was 18, I thought, “Hey, I can do what I want with my money!” Right? Ha ha ha ha.

44. I was raised in the US by Mexican parents. Sometimes I’m so old-fashioned it hurts, sometimes I’m so “modern” my parents want to disown me. I think it’s messed me up big time.

45. English is my second language, but I don’t really remember learning it. I’m an absolute whiz at mimicking speech patterns and neutralizing accents, so you really have to listen hard to hear my accent. Cuz you know, Latinos, we’re the only people born in the US that have ‘em. :)

46. I was never allowed to sleep over at anyone’s house unless they were related to me. This changed rather abruptly and the perfect time…I think I was 15 or 16? Maybe it’s because I was going to an all-girls HS on the “nice” side of town and the girls were well known to my parents, WHO WORKED AT THE SAME SCHOOL where I attended. We don’t talk about trusting me though, that would be hilariously sad.

47. My father was opposed to my going to my Junior Prom unless I was home by midnight OR my brother went with me. Not as my date, happily, but he had to be there to, um, chaperone me, I guess. He’s 18 months older than I am; I think I’ve mentioned this? My best friend volunteered to be his date so I could go.

48. My Senior Prom involved an argument where I was called a “whore,” in Spanish, so that it was really bad. My brother actually came to my rescue with a line than could have ruined my future if it’d gone the wrong way, “You’re letting her go to college by herself all the way in Santa Cruz, but you don’t trust her to go to her own Senior Prom?”

49. I did go to my prom, sans older brother. I did go to UC Santa Cruz and got my BA, I went on to Stanford for an MA, and I have not lived full-time at home since I went off to college, 14 years ago now. Let’s just say I’m the black ewe in the family.

50. I woke up on New Years Day this year with the awful realization that it’s been 10 years since I graduated from UCSC…eep.