Have you ever heard about the Rebar Project?

If not, I will tell you about it. The Rebar Project is a group of artists, designers, and activists based in San Francisco . One of their projects is called Park(ing), where their mission is to provide “temporary public open space in a privatized part of town”. What they do is turn a regular vehicle parking into a small temporary park where just like in a metered parking you can feed the meter and then that space is yours for that period of time to sit in a bench surrounded by green space. I think the idea is genius, and I hope that their project spreads around the world and becomes contagious!
Visit their website for more info : http://www.rebargroup.org/index.html

Things to do...

-research and write his paper (I thought I was done with these for a while)...
-plan, plan, plan, plan...december will be here soon
-make a list
-go to the grocerie store
-pick up the developed pictures
-cook
-deal with your stomach ache
-study for your test
-prune the roses
-water all plants
-clean up front yard
-go see mom
-smile, be happy
-don't go crazy during the night!!!

sleepless

It is absolutely horrific when you desperately want sleep but you cannot seem to get any.
And you lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to his heartbeat, knowing that there is no sleep for you.

Last night my mind was racing like water falling from the sky.
The more I tried to control it, the faster it went.
It sped around in circles, at a billion thoughts per hour.
It had so much to think about.
As time passed, the tic-tac from the clock on the wall became louder and lauder with a resonance similar to that of church bells.
I thought about getting up and committing a massacre: assasinating all the clocks in my house, but somehow I managed to controll my killer instincts.

It was around 3: 30am that I was able to fall asleep…

What are you reading?

"A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader's soul" -Stendhal

I have a tendency to emerge myself in reading especially during those times when I know I should be doing something else. I used to do this in college, right before mid-terms or final exams. I am waiting to receive Stendhal’s “Red and Black”, which I just ordered online today.

What have you been reading lately?
Anything worth reading, anything that I shouldn’t read?
I welcome your suggestions…

Happy B-Day Sis.

The girl wearing the red coat is my sister.
Yesterday she celebrated her birthday.
She is the most beautiful girl I know.
She is kind, funny, smart and spontaneous.
It is strange the way in which the blood connection works.
We could not be more different from each other in character, yet I only need one look into her eyes to know that she is in trouble, to know that she is worried, or anything else that she might be thinking/feeling.
She is more like mom, I am more like dad.
I don’t think we look alike at all, which is what most people say, but once in a while we find someone who says that we look so much alike, and then we look at each other trying to find the similarities.

When we were little we argued and fought each other so intensely that I still bear scratch marks in my hands and arms from her vicious nails. She would hurt me so badly that I would scream, cry and pull her hair all at the same time, until our parents came to the rescue. I am sure I hurt her too, but she never once cried during any of our childhood fights. She was and still remains a strong character, who doesn’t know the meaning of the word: fear.

When we were little, my dad would take me on road trips around the country as he went about his work. You see I was the oldest one. Naturally she looked up to me, sometimes even with jealousy. What she probably doesn’t know is that I needed her too, and that I envied her too, especially during sleepless nights. Often during the winter, I had trouble falling asleep. I didn't fear monsters, demons, ghosts or any other common fears that kids have. I was scared of being alone, of knowing that the whole town was sleeping and that I would be having a restless night, staring at my wall, chasing around sleep. During such nights I would descend on the lower level of our bunk bed, and fall asleep right next to her. My only remedy for sleep was that feeling of being two which I experienced as a tried to synchronize by heart beat to hers.

Today I cherish our moments together as sisters.
I love how we go our separate ways in a store, only to return to the check-out register with the same selections.
I love how we meet up at some place wearing the same clothes.
I love how she sometimes calls me precisely when I am searching my phone for her number.
I love our shared common interest: photography.
I love how we both can dance and sing the night away listen to the Beatles.
I love all the many ways in which we differ from each other.
I am sure she looks up to me for many things, but I know that I look up to her as well to find courage, strength, and that charisma that she is blessed with.

Happy birthday sis. May your heart beat strongly for many, many years to come.

Too many choices...

Last night I went to the store to get two greeting cards, one for a special baby boy born across the ocean and the other for my sister’s birthday. Shopping for cards always turns out to be a challenge for me and a waste of time as well. Usually 45 minutes or so go buy before I narrow down my frantic search, and even when I stand in line to finally pay for the cards I am still unsure if I made the right choices or not. It’s like a little girl once told me, when I took her out to buy ice-cream: “It’s so hard to shop for ice-cream”. And I asked her why and she said: “too many choices”….

Take It From Me--Weepies

What can I compare you to, a favorite pair of shoes?
Maybe my bright red boots if they had wings
Funny how we animate colorful objects saved
Funny how it's hard to take a love with no sting.

But come on take it, come on take it, take it from me
But come on take it, come on take it, take it from me (we`ve got a good life).

What can I compare you to, a window the sun shines through?
Maybe the silver moon, a smile rising
The magic of the fading day, satellites on parade
A toast to the plans we've made to live like kings.

I lose my breath despite the air
When the rain falls down I give in to despair
Pink magnolia in winter she doesn't care if you don't show up to have another cup.

What can I compare you to, when everything looks like you?
I get a bit confused with every Spring
Flowers that bloom your eyes, hummingbirds side by side
My heart won't stay entirely in this rib caging


If you have never heard music from The Weepies check them out on NPR's Weekend Edition: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6041220

Their music is simple, peaceful, insightful and sweet.

She said she usually cried at least once each day
not because she was sad,
but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.~Brian Andreas

I am imagining all the possibilities...

growing

Today I went for a ride on my bike.
One of the positive things about summer passing is that the heat is not so unbearable anymore.
So today I made two braids out of my hair , one to the right and one to the left, took my camera and a bottle of water and went away exploring my neighborhood.

Today I also woke up feeling angry.
I felt angry at those who have hurt me, angry for the way things have turned out, angry at myself for neglecting certain aspects of my own life.

I have become a master at ignoring the perpetrators of hurt. But ignoring them comes with a hurtful price: passing them by in the street and feeling completely nothing, when once upon a time there was so much feeling there.
It is the saddest feeling ever, but it is my only protection from ever being hurt again.

So I overlooked the other angry feelings, which I know will surface again at another time, and allowed myself to get angrier at me for not having taken care of my future.
I thought that if I got angry enough, I would wake up, and turn my anger into action.
So I rode down a street that is only five minutes away from my house but seems as if it were a world away, closed my eyes, and pedaled as fast as I could. The faster I went the more I could feel the cool breeze gently stroking my face. And then as if all of time in the entire universe had stopped, I felt a wordless insight.
I cannot tell you what it was, it did not speak to me.
It was a certain form of knowing, a feeling.
That empty moment, which lasted long enough to change my angry mood, made more sense to me than anything else had during this entire summer.

Now I know that I am growing!

Summer.

I dislike that feeling that I usually get at the end of August, beginning of September, when I feel that summer is coming to an end. It’s true that I live in Florida and we don’t get much of a winter here, but it is still sad watching the summer wither away. No more flaming tourists (burned from the sun) running around town, no more calm days at the beach as the waves get wilder and wilder now, no more friends visiting from out of town, no more of that feeling that spells out summer.
Nothing else to share… I am empty during these last days of the summer

To Miss Anonymous...

...you are not so anonymous to me.
I know who you are.
Thanks to technology I can track down your IP address, internet connection and other details from your visits on my site.
So my advice to you is this: stop wasting time on the internet while you are on the clock at work (yes I am talking to you miss I work in Clearwater, from Summit Building). You might get yourself fired, and I do not think it's worthed to sacrifice your job for the sake of some vulgar comments on my site. Peace to you dear friend.

p.s. you need help!