New Hair Color, New Eye Shadow, Old Confidence

Before I got pregnant, I felt pretty. I had confidence.
I had a unique look, almost exotic. I had a look from all over the world; middle eastern, Lebanese (middle eastern?), greek, italian, spanish, brazilian.. I could walk into any locally owned gas station and get treated like a fellow foreigner chasing after the "american dream". It made me feel good. Made me feel pretty. Made me feel like I could belong in any far away place of my choice. I also got hit on in bars a lot.

This may seem shallow, but lets face it, looks matter. They matter in two ways, independent or any combination of:
1. For personal security and self confidence (can be derived from self or attention of peers), and/or
2. For social security and acceptance from our peers (can only be derived from the attention of our peers).
For me it was that my looks gave me personal security and self confidence. I thought I looked pretty and my peers confirmed it.

Still seem shallow? Let me further explain. I wasn't "INTO" my looks. My LOOKS didn't make me whom I am (though they did give me confidence to express who I am). My getting ready regime took all of 10 minutes including my shower, no make-up, and no mirror. The only time I really looked at myself was during a fleeting glance in a window or bathroom mirror, or when I was pinning up my hair. Face-to-face with myself, and already feeling pretty, I focused on the things I liked the most about the face staring back at me instead of the ones I hated. It didn't that I had more hates than likes, all that mattered was that I had likes.

At first it was my dark curly hair. It was different, and suited me well. It extenuated my personality. My hair was part of what made me ME, so I played with it. The more and more I played with my curls, tight curls, loose curls, bedhead curls, unique up-do's, luxurious layers, the more I discovered that I liked about my looks. I liked my eyes. I liked my skin tone. I liked my freckles. And that was enough for me. Enough for me to feel pretty and my confidence to shine. And people noticed, not my looks, but my confidence. Confidence NOT vanity and NOT ego.

Becoming a mother was without a DOUBT the best thing that ever happened to me. I am wired to be a mother, and not just like all women are, but more than that. Becoming a mother was my Aha! moment! However, unfortunately, it was also the end to my curly hair. For whatever reason, after I lost my curls I lost any feelings of pretty my curls once inspired. And though my feelings of personal security and sense of purpose dramatically increased, so much so in fact the current made the latter almost seem false, I tragically lost a lot of my self confidence. Now when I look in the mirror I see tired baggy eyes, dull skin, and barely even wavy hair. I don't feel pretty, I don't even see anything I like. I realized it doesn't matter what other people see in, pretty or not. If I don't feel pretty than I am not going to until I think I am.

Recently I decided to start wearing make-up. At first it gave me just enough umph to carry some confidence. It wasn't that the make-up made me look any better, but it gave me the opportunity to change up my look, and I could change it any way I wanted. I could change it according my outfit, my eye color, my mood, my attitude. I could even do my make-up and then change my mood or attitude. A problem soon presented itself as I quickly learned that putting on make-up takes time, and well unless I am not on a schedule I usually don't dedicate the time to keep up with my look(s). See, I am not the type of girl, or person for that matter, that likes to wake up in the morning, let alone wake up and put make-up on. I sleep in until the very last minute, until there isn't even a second left to do anything more than pop in the shower, get dressed, brush my teeth and run out the door with papers and coffee trailing behind. Some times I don't even give myself that much time. Heh, who am I kidding, half the time I don't even give myself that much time. Half the time I don't even have time to shower, I am brushing my teeth, putting my pants on, and getting my essential accessories together (phone, wallet, computer) at the same. Its dire that I get as much sleep as I can. In the end I decided make-up would be better for the weekends.

After the make-up weekday mornings fiasco I decided to dye my hair dark, like I use to, to accentuate my exotic curls. And, Waala. I am back! The curls came back as soon as I rinsed and scrunched in some Suave Captivating Curls and my confidence as soon as I could look in the mirror (I had to wait a bit for the mirror to un-fog, <de-fog?>). Even better than that, as hard as it is to imagine there can be anything better than that, is it helped me recognize myself as an individual. No one told me I looked any better, or that I had been looking particularly bad prior to, and I am not even sure I look that much different or my hair is really any curler, but the interest I took in myself, the personal care and attention I gave myself helped me to be an "I" AND a "WE". I am taking better care of my skin, my hair, my eyebrows, preventing all the signs of aging, smelling, staining and I feel good!

Thank you Totalbeauty.com!

Learning from the Kardashins..

I learned a very valuable lesson from the very beautiful crazy awesome Kardashin sisters.. but I usually do. Mostly I learn a lot about my own family, and the very special cooky relationships I have with them.
The break down on who's who on the Kardashins..
Kourtney Kadashin is most like me.
Kim Kardashin is most like Nikki.
Khloe Kardashin is most like Leah.
Bruce Jenner is Greg.
Kris Jenner is Mom.
So many weekend nights, and some week nights, the Kardashins have kept up to the wee hours of the morning giving me valuable insight into the psyche of the Martinezs. These appointments on the couch do more than give me insight and understanding but also a strange sense of pride and enthusiasm to be apart of such an amazing family.
More importantly than all that, my Kardashin Sessions helped me to realize that we could have our own tv show, and it would blow up the ratings. We are so entertaining. So outrageous. So shameless. We are psycho. We even have a little of that incest-uality that they have. We wouldn't care about the fame. The money would just be a bonus. However, the real perk would be being able to share ourselves with the world, and maybe be someone else what the Kardashins have been for me and my family (we are all fans).
Just as great as all this is the way I relate to Kourtney. I know how psycho this sounds, but read me out. I actually feel that if we met we would hit it off and we would become great friends. We have so much in common. Seriously. I don't care about the fame, even if she wasn't famous I would still feel this way. The only thing about that though is it would be harder for me to know who she was.

Also, I just want to say I think she is the prettiest one..

Bullying the Bullies

Every 7 seconds a child is bullied, only 4% of the time an adult witness will intervene, 11% of the time a fellow peer will intervene, the remaining 85% of the time a child is bullied NO ONE will stop it. 56% of children (the bullied children's fellow peers) personally witness bullying. On an ordinary school day 160,000 kids miss school because of their fear of being bullying. 1 out of every 4 children is bullied. 77% of school children are have experienced bullying. 282,000 school children are physically attacked each month. 1 in 5 children are bullies.

According to one poll, American schools harbor 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million of their victims. In a few years I am going to walk my son down a long scary hallway to an even scarier classroom. As we walk I will clutch his sweet, sensitive, innocent, naive, unique little hand with a terrified grasp. As he goes to open the door he will look me in eyes, excited but nervous. Knowing what lies beyond that door I will have to hide my own fear and anxiety. After all this will a big day for him. Eventually the door will be open and I will come face to face with the children that may or may not beat him up in the bathroom, or make him cry when he gets home, or call him demeaning hurtful names. Depending on the size of the classroom, 4 to 6 of the children sitting beyond that dreaded door could end up being my son's real life monster, they could be my son's personal bully.

And just what am I suppose to do? What can I do? How can I knowingly send my son off to this violent institution? How am I supposed to just make my son meet his monster? Me being the type of person I am I will punch a kid the face. I don't know care. I won't even hesitate! I will go to jail for my son if it means he never has to experience the turmoil of being bullied, but first I will ask for the sake of my future bully and all kids who are bullied, lets teach our children tolerance and acceptance. We are as adults, not just parents, but all adults are the cause of this bullying however directly or indirectly. They learn from us. We teach them to abuse each other. We teach them to reject what is different and misunderstood. I am not asking anyone to give up their personal intolerances based on gender, race, disability, physical features and appearances (that are not race), sexual orientation and preference, social status, economic status, etc.. I am asking that we do not express our person discriminations in front of our children. Especially take notice to the words we use around them, such as fag, retard, spick, fat (insert word here), white trash, etc. We often don't realize that it is our words that do the most damage, and are responsible for most of the violence going on in our children's schools.

Please, I don't particularly like punching children in the face.

Morning Glory

Every day I get caught up in the moment, which is great? Right? I mean didn't Confucius say, "live in the now" "there is no time but now"?? He was pretty good at dulling out advice, wasn't he? If there is no time but now then I choose to play with my son now, please.

Unfortunately, time is also money. And living in the now costs a lot of money. And living from now to now requires even more money. I decided to go back to school to pay for these moments. So we could enjoy each moment fully without worrying how we would pay for them.


After a long 8 hour day at work (5 days a week), I hussle on over to class for a long 3 hour night (3 nights a week). That's 8 to 11 whole hours without my son. These 8 to 11 hours are torture. I think of all the moments lost with my son that I will never experience. I think about the new things he is doing, the new things he is seeing, the new things he is experiencing during those hours. I wonder will he forget about me, does he think I forgot about him, does he miss me, does he think he did something wrong to make me go away, is he mad at me?  When I get home all I want to do is spend each moment possible with him. I even lay in bed with him until he falls asleep. I don't want to pay bills, or study, or clean. In the mean time these things go undone, but they don't disappear. They wait for me. They pile up, creating heavy lurking shadows of To Do's. Once he is asleep I wrestle with this shadow. I stay up too late not getting nearly enough done, and a viscous cycle begins of lost moments, unfinished responsibilities, and exhaustion.

Inevitably I lost sight of why I was doing this all to begin with. Why did I decide to be working mother? Why did I decide to go back to school? Why did I decide to acquire more debt?

I want to give my son the world..

I want to live in one of those new condos downtown for 10 years or so, then I want to buy a vintage home in crown heights (between 37th and 40th on Shartel) or Mesta Parks and retire there. I want to maybe live in Spain or San Fransico. I want to take annual family vacations all over the world. I want to have two cars that actually run properly. I want to take my son to disney world, and EuroDisney. I want to send him to a great charter school. I want to be able to afford to feed my son healthy food. I want him to be able to have as many extra curricular activities he wants. I want to send him to any college he wants. I want to spoil him. I want him to have a big swing set and playground in the backyard. I want to decorate my dream home without worrying about what other expenses we will have to cut. I want to be able to send me and my family to the doctor without putting myself in debt. I want to buy my extended family cool birthday and christmas presents. I want to be able to take my extended family to dinner whenever I want. I want to be able to live life in now with financial security. I want to give my family and friends what they want and need. I just want to give my son everything. I want to make a decent salary for a 3 person family so I can pay off my debt and live in a nice home with nice things no financial stress and the ability to provide in a way that is above and beyond. I don't want to be rich, I just want to be well off. 

Some of these things may seem superficial. Others may not seem to be worth all that I am sacrificing right now. In the end I just want to provide for my family without worrying how. 

No One Told Me Life Was Gonna Be This Way

Becoming a grown up is not as dramatic of a transition as I imagined it would be. I imagined a coming to age experience with a fantastic introduction to all the new, added responsibilities. Its not like I was expecting to receive a step-by-step instructions manual with precise protocols and pretty pictures!

Instead I received a credit card application in the mail, a student loan, an unexperienced salary and an invitation to go forth and reproduce. TV made it look so easy. All life's lessons were acted out over coffee with 5 friends. I guess 29.5% APR is not a valuable lesson to be learned in TVland.

                                                      10 Things I DIDN'T Learn from TV

1. In order to pay for coffee you have to have money

2. In order to have money to pay for coffee you have to have a job

3. In order to have a successful, high paying career you have to go to college

4. Being an entrepreneur doesn't always pay well

5. Most work offices are not the size of studio apartments 

6. Water, gas, and electricity are not free

7. Credit cards charge interest

8. APR is NOT just short for April

9. ALWAYS read the fine print before you sign something

10. Smoking causes cancer and premature birth

If TV did teach these things I guarantee TV ratings would not be proportional to childhood obesity and college students wouldn't have to file bankruptcy straight out of college. But, I probably wouldn't have watched it.