sunday, november 9, 2008

i have a confession to make.

i am guilty of taking my husband for granted and last night, a nightmare i had is helping me write this apology. i am writing to apologize.

while i slept last night, i dreamed about a normal day of me cleaning and dropping his trousers off at the cleaners. however it happened, i can’t remember, my husband died. the heartbreak and sadness that i felt from his death in my dream was extremely painful and all i could think about was how i didn’t appreciate him enough. i went to bed and woke up alone then had to go about my day knowing that the rest of my life would be lived without him in it.

i was blessed to wake up for real… with him… sleeping peacefully beside me. now while my first instinct was to hug him and tell him about how sorry i was, i let him sleep and appreciated the fact that he was just there and that things are the way they are.

with the age of 30 approaching but a few years from now, i’ve been guilty of hammering my demands for romance, affection, and certain things (like babies and washing machines) without REALLY appreciating who he is and what we are. my husband is romantic and affectionate in his own way and i used to see and appreciate it but somehow, after falling into the routine of bills and family and house and home, forgot why i love his uniqueness so much. i was wanting flowers to grow on new seeds. i’d nag and chalk it up to that time of the month without considering the damage i was stabbing into his spirit with my harsh words.

i love my husband and though yes i understand that i deserve to have my desires and needs met, i don’t believe that they should be fulfilled under such circumstances. instant gratification can be a dangerous thing and because i know this, i’m writing it here in case i need another reminder in the future.

be patient.
have faith my man.
he has never done anything but love and support ME.
give back to him.
keep giving back and the rest will fall into place.

i regularly receive funny (forwarded) e-mails from my lady friends and family about women and independence and the power we have. i am writing this message to myself in my weblog of correspondence to remind myself of how this (feeling) feels right now.

i’m sorry.

sunday, june 29, 2008

hoy,

we watched the pacquiao fight at a friend’s house tonight so i’m tired but all wide eyed and pumped up from the adrenaline of wanting to throw some punches myself! i can’t get into sports too much but boxing is dope. it’ll be nice when we finally get our own place because homey can install the speed bag set he got me for Christmas which is still in the box because we don’t have a place to put it. i haven’t been able to go to the gym with K being out of school for summer vacation. Yeah they have a childcare center and all but it’s 8 bucks a visit!!! crazy… i know what i should be doing is getting my ass up at 5:30 so i can get to the spin class by 6 but that never happens when i’m up shopping and blogging work stuff til 1 o’ clock in the morning.

mom’s coming tomorrow and K’s got this whole agenda. It was so cute cause he goes, “Mama I’m going to take you to Navy Pier! Hey Mom? Can we take mama to navy pier so i can teach her how to golf?”

i definitely wanna show mom the stuff like a sunrise and festival type stuff that she doesn’t get in the bay area. chicago is definitely the place to be in the summertime. out here, they do block parties, festivals ALL THE TIME… There’s this one thing called “Taste of Chicago” which is pretty dope. You go to a boothe and buy these pages of tickets (usually about a dollar a ticket) and then you go to the booths of the different food vendors where you trade a certain amount of tickets for a “taste” sized portion (for a couple of tickets) or spend more tickets for a full meal. i might take mom to that if she’s got the energy for it.

i’m mailing you something so try to be home around the time your mail gets to your door.

i’m head bobbin’ and falling asleep so i’ll just talk to you tomorrow. call me when you get this.

<3

wednesday, june 25, 2008

aye nerde,

i just read your e-mail from 4 days ago. damn that was good. you know… this thing is really amazing and though i’d probably never tell you face to face, it makes me happy and excited because it’s been a while since i’ve written so much!

i guess the tough thing for me is that i don’t see writing as a technical thing. i see it as emotional, from the heart, pleasure and pain all jotted or typed into words to immortalized moments like a photographs. I write to remind myself of where i want (or don’t want) to be.

i have a hard time keeping up because i’m not grammatically correct or articulate. my attention span is too short for long stories. i’m not a writer. i write, but i’m not a “writer”. do i want to be? nah, not really. I’m more of the diarist type as you called it.

i have a difficult time writing because i refuse to edit certain things in fear of certain people coming across it so i find myself typing then deleting it all because it’s all or nothing and then when i do write, it’s sucks or reads so sad even though i’m not a sad person overall. when i write, like therapy, that;s when all the insecurities and dreams some out. in a way, my writing is real and unreal because of all this. i talk so much that when it finally comes time to say what i want without literally using my voice, i start to think the things that i don’t say or can’t say which results in something angry for readers who happen to stumble upon my shit.

why am i here? why link to the undeniables? hmm. you know i usually have an answer for everything but for this i don’t except for the fact that i’m inspired.

pace mang and keep up the good work.

wednesday, june 11, 2008

Oh man,

ok so you know how i said that one of my things to do before 30 was to be a cast member in a musical? any musical… as long as it’s a musical… anyway, i went out on an audition for a small local production of Evita tonight. man! i didn’t even have headshots so i just took a picture with my dinky digital camera and then printed it here at home onto photo paper (ha ha)!

it was hella nerve wrecking because one… duh it’s an audition… two… everyone there seemed to know each other. When we walked through the door of the cafe, a gentleman greeted us with a, “Hello nine o’ clockers.” And then we were handed and audition form to sign which had the rehearsal and tentative show schedule.

Everything started with the choreographer introducing himself and the director then explaining how each of us were going to sing… The went into how the director may or may not interrupt to give some direction just as he may or may not give us music to leave with for our callbacks…

I had my sheet music to the pianist and he asks me, “How many pages are you going to sing?” I laugh nervously with, “tee hee I don’t know I’ve never done a musical theater audition before!” Luckily he was so nice to calm me with a, “No worries. The director will just stop you whenever…”

So I stand there. The music doesn’t start… The director and choreographer are kinda looking and before another beat could go by i go, “whew ok so this is my first musical theater audition so if i suck… that’s why.. ha ha ha” They tell me to go ahead and start…

The music started and so did I… y’know usually, once i start with any singing on stage, the nervousness goes away but not that time… my legs were shaking and about three quarters through the songthe director stopped me and gave me some direction to play it young and just sit in a chair while singing… so i did… and he stopped me again… and gave me music for my callback…

shit. now i’ve just gotta learn how to read music.

the ball has officially been rolled. now i just gotta go to one audition after the other until i land something!

monday, june 02, 2008

Hoy sis,

I always found it weird when people would say, “The house I grew up in…” because we moved so much I didn’t know what that felt like. When we were babies, mom and papa moved a couple of times and by me at around 3 or 4… you at 2 or 3, we got that house in west covina.

Remember moving to Fremont right in the middle of me in Kindergarten and Sunrise School? We drove up in the rain and slept in sleeping bags that first night we moved in because all our stuff was with the movers. I can still see the old logo of the big carton Nestle Quick chocolate milk in the fridge… yum. When I said goodbye to my new friends at Sunrise, I was saying hello to more new friends in Ms. Wheel’s class. Remember how I was so late that I wasn’t even in the class picture? You were too young for school so you stayed home with mom.

A few years later we moved that other apartment where that kid stole my roller skates from our porch but then I stole them back by telling him, “Cool can I try your roller skates?!” then went home with them hollering, “Stupid! These are my skates! Steal anything from me again and I’ll beat you up!”

Another a few years later, we moved to that apartment across the street from the first one we moved into on that rainy day… The one where we would rig our room up like a haunted house.

Then the penthouse that everybody called the museum cause there were so many breakables all over. Remember when I rigged the shower with a bucket of cold water and you were hella pissed cause I dumped it on you? Ha ha… Man I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream so loud.

Then you me and the bro got shipped with nothing more than 2 20×20 inch boxes each of belongings to the Philippines only to come back 3 years later to that one apartment where we had to establish cool points from scratch…

Then the apartment on Colorado Blvd. You moved out and as papa started house hunting, I went on my way out to live it roommate style.

Between living the roommate life and now, I’ve moved 9 times. The kid already at 6 moves for his record…

When the time comes for Me and my 2 to move, I’d like it to be for real. I’d like it to be like a marriage I guess. It would be nice if the kid could grow up to be one of those who would understand, “The house I grew up in…”

Ya feel me?

friday, may 30, 2008

hey girl,

i just wanted to let you know that it’s nice to know you understand the whole “working on our own time with our businesses is a wonderful yet lonely place to be sometimes” feeling. this feeling is something that people don’t seem to understand. i really miss feeling like i’m doing something worth the universe’s time.

remember how we were talking about how the both of us have kind of forgotten to fix ourselves for our husbands lately and then reminded each other to snap out of it and fix ourselves up tonight and every other night we remember to? well… I tried that eye liner i bought today and i’m going to wear this shirt that he really likes (ha ha seriously, it’s just a long sleeve T-SHIRT!)… he commented on it once so that’s gonna be it. i think it would be a little over the top to wear a dress or something…

let me know how dinner with yours goes and whether or not you decided to go with the jeans or the skirt! Let’s talk or text tomorrow about going with you and your girls to see sex and the city (if mine doesn’t have anything planned =) that is) cause it sounds like it’ll be fun!

and… thanks for hanging out today and like I said in the car, I really appreciate how you’ve been trying to get me up and out of the house since monday.

eh… i’ve gotta chill i know… i really… and i mean r.e.a.l.l.y need a vacation. it’s just a tough catch 22 cause my man doesn’t really care much for vacations so he’d be hating it if he went but then i’d be sad going without him. i mean, we never even went on our honeymoon y’know? so i thought i’d ask him to go to the feist concert at the ravinia cause he actually likes her music and he usually hates my music but then he said it doesn’t make sense if we’re gonna be on the grass watching a screen. i tried to remind him about how we’d be under the stars and make a ball out of it but nah it didn’t fly… i’m running out of ideas… and energy… or it’s just that time of the month and year 28 is coming up with many goals missed…

wednesday, may 28, 2008

Mother Nature,

can you please make the clouds go away? i’m tired of waking up to fifty degrees one day and sunshine the other. make up your mind. is the sun going to be here or not?

i want to dust off my flip flops and lay out in the sun with block all over my skin. the lake is docked with boats and ducks have come back ready to take on the season.

i got an email the other day about the difference between Carrots, Eggs, or Coffee Beans and sure it was a lift of motivation. sure it’s one to keep in mind. honestly though, it’s not easy. i’d like to think myself to be the bean but coffee beans become bitter when boiled for too long. haven’t you tested me long enough? cut me a break and give me some sunshine that’ll stick around for a little longer than one afternoon.

i’d like to be able to wake up and throw on a seasonally appropriate outfit without having to check the weather first. it would be nice to be able to step out without having to worry about having a sweater because “you just never know”. me being california grown, i’m a sunshine kind of girl so why don’t i get to have what keeps me going?

this is Chicago after all right? i’m the one who decided to move here. just me alone, so I need to cope it alone right? i see. i was under the impression that we were in this together being a part of the same universe and all.

forget i asked.

saturday, may 24, 2008

hoy,

i’m obsessed with tuna salad on celery sticks right now. I went to a cafe called Kafein with a girlfriend last week and we ordered a sampler platter with hummus, chicken salad, and tuna salad. Me thinking that the platter would have pita and whatnot found myself thinking, “Damn. Just celery, carrot sticks and slices of cucumber?” as I smiled and told the waiter, “Wow thanks!! Looks good!” Ha ha sucker. I really can be a door mat at times.

So anyway, I don’t know why but for some reason I thought I’d just have a celery stick! Yeah really!!! I don’t know what did it! (I mean, you remember ever since, I’ve always hated celery!) Can’t stand it! But I loved it!! It tasted so good together! Even my friend goes, “Oh yeah that’s good!”

So there ya go. I’m hooked. Been eating tuna salad with lots of pepper on celery almost everyday since! The good thing is that rumor has it that celery helps with weight loss because it takes more calories to burn than the amount of calories in the celery itself! Good… I’m trying to lose about 15 lbs right now.

I’ve been going to that gym I told you about. I take either the spin class or “hard CORE” class for abs on Tuesday… Boxing on Wednesday and then if I can make it on other days, I’ll hit the treadmill or the whirlpool. It’s funny cause those classes really kick my ass but my motivation in my head is, “C’mon!!! Keep going! Don’t look at the clock. Almost done!… Your man will love it when he sees what you’ve done with yourself!!” And then I keep going… I know it sounds silly but he still does that to me y’know? Always has really. Guys like homey (we switched the n in honey to make it less cheesy) are the reason women carry compact mirrors in their purses so they can make quick touch ups before interaction.

It’s been a while since I’ve put effort into fixing myself up though. I used to be able to stand in front of the mirror and know exactly how I was going to do my hair and which accessories to place on myself to complete the ensemble whereas now, I seem to not give a damn? Yeah I know! Very weird! Coming from the girl who sat up in bed in the dark in second grade to put her hair up in curlers every night, had to buy a new outfit every weekend, and settled for nothing less than the last pair of Armani sunglasses in the glass case for 8th grade graduation? what is going on?

Part of me feels good about it though which is odd but then there’s that insecure side of me. The side who looks in the mirror at every angle thinking, “Hmm. I’ve lost my good side. I look like a boy. Man I’m ugly!”

Homey and I were talking the other night about how people evolve every seven years. In September, I’ll be fresh into phase 4 with year 28. Fuck! I’m going to be twenty-eight! You know how some people feel like they wish they could be younger? I never get that. Every birthday, I feel a panic of what I didn’t get done and then I tell myself that I was a loser for not hustling enough to get it done. Kinda stupid ju know?!?!?

Anyway, I’m gonna go pig out on a rice bowl with sizzling spam and teriyaki flavored seaweed sprinkled on top… (Sounds good) right!?!?! like a spam musubi bowl! Try it. It’s so good!

love ya sis…
Kiss the kid for me…

-crazy (you know it!!)

thursday, may 22, 2008

hoy,

how’s things going out there on the farm? just kidding. i know you don’t live on a farm but damn girl!!! i can’t help but laugh when you tell me that you live in the suburbs but then i google map your address and all i see is crop circles surrounding your hood.

hee hee.

anyway, i’m tired of this weather. it’s sunny yes but it’s still in the 50s! what tha fudge? seriously, i just realized that the winter out here in the Midwest really is a lot darker because i never wore my sungasses! Remember in LA hwo it was sunny year round? it’s not at all like that out here.

i went to forever 21 and target and got the best stuff for nothing! i posted it up on my blog so you can check it out there (http://tristinstyling.com/blog/).

hey remember how we used to clown on poeple who had allergies and complained about it all the time? karma has finally kicked me in the ass so hard that i’ve got them so bad i think i may be developing asthma. i always fee like i’m breathing through a straw. like i’ve got my bra on too tight but then i go to loosen it and i’m actually not wearing one. shit.

i get sleepy in the afternoon and even after napping, i’m still tired… hmm… i know! it’s like… you know after you run your ass off and then you get a cramp in your abdomen so you’re crouched over… hard to breathe… catching your breath? that’s what i feel like but all the time! and then i’ve gotta keep the smile and cool cause shit’s gotta get done.

i’ve got no time to get sick or hospitalized when there’s the business with drop offs and pick-ups before and after with 8 loads of laundry a week, groceries, dinner, and lessons (while i do more work on the computer) with the kid after school. no room for error. fuck. it’s stressful. on top of that, I was telling marigem yesterday that i am beginning to learn who my friends are. i have this one friend in particular who has gone from, “i love you girl you’re my sister.” to never calling. And keeps dropping how she’s got to come out and visit but hasn’t yet (i’ve been here for over a year now.).

i want to go to the philippines next summer. it looks like it’s just gonna be me and the kid though because well… the husband won’t go. he says he’ll never go to the philippines. ouch. eh i can learn to accept that. i mean, he hates travelling. i gave up the dream of travelling last year when we were family planning but now that we’re not going to be having anymore kids, i’m game.

Man i’m just rambling i know but i just gotta get it all out as it comes without edits. i edit after the fact so it’s more real. editing hides the personal flaws of the who the person really is i think.

ok… gotta go.

more later.

=)

p.s.
you pregnant yet or what?

wednesday, may 21, 2008

Hey Marigem,

How’s the belly growing? How are the 2 boys and most of all… How are you? i miss LA but I really shouldn’t you know? there are a lot of flakes out there.

Remember that conversation we had about people and learning who your friends are after becoming a parent… most especially… a momma? How girlfriends just forget about you but still play it like they give a shit? moving really makes it all show. you learn who really cares by just calling to say hello. who doesn’t answer because i’m the friend from Chicago and not the booty call of the week.

yeah it sucks to hear a “good” friend say shit like,”oh gosh i’m so busy.” and then find out that ended up hanging out on facebook typing cute messages to everyone else but you (I’m not talking about messages either… I’m talking about the time it takes to browse and add and type and comment…etc…), hanging with the crew all night long or flew out of town numerous times just cause but not once have come to see you after being away from LA for over a year.

to know you’re not worth the 10 minutes hurts.

you know what hurts even more? i claim the frustrated card now but i know the day they all have kids or need me to be there for whatever may come whether it be death of a loved one or a break-up… i’ll be there like i’ve always been. it kinda makes me feel like a sucker but what oh well. that’s life i guess?

So.. on that note, i just wanted to say thanks for your friendship. I know with the 2 and one more on the way we don’t talk much… but we do… cuse when we do it’s quality. it’s real.

thanks girl.

<3,
tristin