Mamita Mala - One Bad Mami

La Mala Has Left Blogger

2006-05-24T09:02:00.000-04:00

Visit my new home at mamitamala.com

Really You Should be here anymore

2006-05-23T08:32:00.000-04:00

I'm Moving

2006-05-22T11:59:00.000-04:00

Well this blog is anyway. I'm moving off of blogger and slowly settling into mamitamala.com thanks to Vegankid. That site is under serious construction including updating links and the look of the site, so excuse the mess over there. It takes a little time to settle into a home of your own. I'm learning that blogger has spoiled me and that I know shit about designing a blog.

Late Night Movies - The King Shouldn't Be Alive

2006-05-21T09:46:00.000-04:00

If I could choose the next fantasy father of my next fantasy baby it would be Gael Garcia Bernal. He's talented, cute, and has good politics. Usually the movies he plays in are well done and thought provoking. I said Usually. Last night I caught a late showing of The King and walked out feeling less than satisfied, kind of like when you build up sleeping with someone and it's just eh.
The plot was interesting and the plot twists sick, which all good by me. But halfway through the movie, it just started to feel like a drag, like everything was being melodramatically drawn out and accompanied by even more melodramatic music.

My pololo and I had been talking about going to a movie since we started dating months ago and sadly this was the first movie we shared.

Un Cambio Por Favor

2006-05-20T08:31:00.000-04:00

Many many changes are about to happen. In my life and on this blog. Mi pololo will be leaving for Spain for three weeks, giving me three weeks of time to think and reflect and plan. I have to figure out which conferences I will make this summer and which ones I will sit out. I have to factor in la Mapu and make sure she is taken care of if she doesn't come with. I have to earn money and save money. Sadly, life isn't free.

Soon this blog will be moving off of blogger and on its own space (gracias to Vegankid) which I am very excited about out.

Summer is my favorite season. It's hot and sweaty and sensual and sexy and always seems to be a big time of change in my life. This summer promises to be no different.

Punctuation

2006-05-17T19:03:00.000-04:00

I refuse to balance on a hyphen
Slip between ellipses of omission
of waiting
for my adjective
my modifier.

I like to use the dash when I write, especially when I write in my daily journal. It indicates continuity, connections and yes poor grammar skills.

Today I received my official acceptance letter from Voices of Our Nations Art Foundation (VONA).
. I have the opportunity to spend a few weeks in San Fran working on my writing. I am honored and excited to work with other writers of color and share community. But I have no idea how I will do it. The program will cost me, not including airfare about $800. This comes at a time when I am planning a move into a new apartment I will share with my daughter and pololo, healthcare bills are on the horizon, and of course basic survival needs. But my writing is a survival need as well. But who will watch my 8 year old daughter while I indulge myself in words and the sound they make on my mouth and the space they take up once they leave my mouth?

Well there is a little, humble donation button on the sidebar (god I beg alot no?)
But this is something I have waited too long to do, take a step for myself and how that self expresses herself.

Still doesn't take care of childcare but they don't make a button for that.

Fear of Water

2006-05-16T18:40:00.000-04:00

I have bathed every inch of this skin
And what is covered beneath it
In your waters.
Slowly
Methodically
Cautiously.

It is not that I am unfamiliar with the ritual of submerging.
Toes gripping the edge
Closing my eyes
Deep breath in
Hold
Bend knees
Push off
And jump.

I havenÂt forgotten the baptismal birth water font
Or the 9 months of water world safety thatprecededd my salvation .
Nor have I forgotten that
Rush
Air bubbles
From tip toe
Up along my calves
Grazing my thighs
Curving my ass
Dancing on my crooked spine
Kissing my neck
And right through my head.
Not to mention what happens inside
The weightlessness
Floating
Falling
Stomach turning over itself and
Pressing down
Down
Down.

Every dive different
With the same goal
Reaching the bottom
And floating back up
To the surface
The light
The sun
Warm,
New
Alive.

And now that I have thrown myself in, consequences and all, I feel he is swimming towards the edge, looking for a way out.

And meanwhile on the Spanish language networks

2006-05-15T20:25:00.000-04:00

While the blanquitos are debating the prez's speech, Univision and Telemundo wuickly went back to broadcasting their novelas, porque heaven forbid that abuela misses lo que paso.

Shrub Talks Immigration

2006-05-15T20:19:00.000-04:00

Does anyone see the contradictions in Bush's speech? He talks about bolstering border security yet admits that so far that has not been a deterrent. What's so different now?

I wonder if Bush really expects Congress to crack down on businesses hiring non-documented workers. Lip service anyone? The issue of an id for immigrants also does not address the huge underground economy in which many non-documented immigrants work within.

Bush is making it very clear that he is anti-amnesty.

What bullshit! Melting pot and assimilation. It sounds like he is going to make an English only law. He is playing up the old pulling up oneself from your bootstraps cliche which of course ignores that even for citizens , there are huge disparities of access to opportunities based on color, ethnicity, class and gender.

Ay- how predictable. Bush is going to make an example of a Latino immigrant in the armed forces. The honorable immigrant stereotype. People of color who risk theory lives for freedom not because there are no other options. Not because there are recruiters at schools in inner city neighborhoods picking and choosing children of color to serve as canon fodder.

Basically- I just wasted 17 minutes of my life listening to bullshit.

A few wasted minutes of our time listening to the President

2006-05-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

Right away he labels people as "illegal immigrants" which is obviously problematic. People - immigrants are not illegal. According to the President, "Illegal Immigration brings crime to communities". Nice. Here is the plan according to the Pres.

Securing the borders (except from commerce = money). If so much progress is being made at the border why are so many people being apprehended? Obviously what the politicians are talking here isn't in sync with the needs of both those crossing the border and with the employers who hire them.

6,000 National Guard troops will be sent to the border (the Mexican border because no one cares about those coming through the Canadian border - no hint of racism here. Move it along folks).

Whoa - The pres is asking for $$ to get local and state law enforcement involved in helping border patrol - which if you ask me is a dangerous precedent. It allows for racial profiling.

Bush is Live

2006-05-15T20:01:00.000-04:00

Uh oh...something went wrong with the feed. CNN say they accidently showed the president "rehearsing". Who knew it took so much practice too look so stupid.

Patrolling the Border Patrol National Guard BS

2006-05-15T19:29:00.000-04:00

As an experiment and as a reaction to a conservative blogger, I decided I'm going to live blog the bobo in chief's speech, which airs live in less than an hour.

Wet, Wet, Wet (Birthday's Done - Back to Reality)

2006-05-15T14:54:00.000-04:00

Gracias for all the birthday wishes. 29 is turning out to feel alot like 19 in more ways than one.

This is not a post about all the wonderful sex I had this past weekend (although it could be). It is not a post about how much it rained in Boston where I spent my birthday weekend.

I was able to read a whole book this weekend, eat good food, sleep, shower in private, write, and all the other little things you take for granted and forget that you are capable of as a mami. I have my chilenito to thank for that because he managed to snatch me away in a little bed & breakfast. Not that the weekend was without drama though. I will let people speculate and mummur but I am always still somewhat surprised at how quickly males use their privilage card, even so called liberal, free-thinking, free-spririted men. Yes and I'm a little disapointed. Not that I should be but I suppose their is always that tiny expectation /hope that somehow this one person is different.
I don't care any less. I am just aware of how incredibly human people can be when faced with certain situations and by human I mean, self-interested. No judgements about it, just acknowledgement.

It's my Birthday

2006-05-12T10:23:00.000-04:00

And I will be away enjoying it. For all the mamis- have a wonderful mother's day. See you all on Monday

Because I Ain't too Proud to Beg

2006-05-11T20:50:00.000-04:00

In case you don't know me personally and know the shamelessness that is Mala you may not know that this coming Friday is my birthday. I will be entering my last year as a twenty-something. Now what does a not quite thirty year old single NYRican writer woman want for her birthday? Well to make it easier on you all and so that I have a point of reference. Because I am practical most of the things on the extensive list below are things I actually need. I am fully aware that I will not likely get any of the things below unless I get em for my damn self- and that's fine. Just indulge me a bit ok?

photo printer ink
A subscription to this magazine
Upgrade me here
Take me to see n adult movie (and no I don't mean porn I mean something that doesn't involve animation or talking animals or fucking kids saving the day.
Books- tell me your favorites!
Free babysitting- so I can write- read- fuck- or just so I can pee without interuption
Send me to a concert - I haven't been to one in years.
A haircut
A manicure/pedicure (sandalia season is upon us)
There are many good restaurants in NY- take me to one
I like opera- there I said it- I'm not ashamed. If you like me you will take me to the opera
A new digital camera - I have one and it works but it's a few years old and new one would be nice. who doesn't like new things?
Sex toys - Yes my current partner is working fine thank you very much but sometimes I need a lunchtime orgasm

Coqui At My Door

2006-05-10T14:15:00.000-04:00

At approximately 5:30 yesterday afternoon there was a knock at my door. I went to answer it as it was an afternoon full of client meetings. I looked through the peephole. Nadie. I opened the door. No one. Then I noticed in front of my door a little figurine of a coqui, that tiny Rican tree frog that sang me to sleep during my many childhood stays back in la patria. I didn't dare touch it. What if someone had done some brujeria on it? Was a it a joke from my German neighbor downstairs, the one who wears a big cowboy hat and always seems to have knick knacks to give away? Was it from that young guy from Wisconsin who lives across the hall with me? I'm convinced he has a crush on my sister. Maybe it was a goodbye gift from my neighbors who just moved to the other side of the building. Maybe it was an insult, a slur in the physical form of a pava wearing coqui. It could be making fun of the current fiscal crisis Puerto Rico finds itself in. When my sister came home two hours later. She didn't bring the coqui into the house either, suspecting brujeria also (we are a superstitious/suspicious lot). We wracked our brains wondering who it could be from and what it could mean. Last night the coqui was allowed into the house by my mother who said my sister and I were being ridiculous. My sister and I scolded her and began planning for the limpieza we would now have to do because my mother brought the coqui into the apartment. I mentioned the coqui to a number of parents at a parent association budget meeting this morning. They all (all white) shook their head, indicating the incident as a bad sign. Ok so we are the only Rican family in the building but we've been the only Rican family in the building for what, 15 years now?

The coqui, with his hat, is sitting on my piano in the entrance hallway of the apartment, keeping silent on whatever his reason for being left on my doorstep.

The Spring 2006 Crisis : Bugs

2006-05-09T00:26:00.000-04:00

La MapucheRican sees herself as unlucky in cycles. Last summer it was the Home Depot sink display falling on her. We rang in the new year with the fork incident
My recent absence was do to another mapucherican related incident. Now to many a mami, especially a latina mami one of the worse insults you could throw at her is calling her sucia or descuidada. That we don't keep our children neatly dressed and clean. I fail shamelessly at the neatly dressed part. I could fucking care less about ironing and send la mapu out all wrinkled and disheveled. But she's clean carajo. So imagine my disgust and surprise at finding bugs- piojos- lice. My intellectual side knows very well that the nasty but harmless bugs actually prefer clean hair but still I felt like a horrible mother. How could this happen to my kid and worse yet how could this happen to yes me (one of the untold benefits of co-sleeping).

La mapu was fairly easy to deal with. Toxic chemicals, vinegar, tea tree oil, olive oil (not all together) and combing sessions that lasted hours took care of her. Washing and disinfecting everything in site took care of the household and prevented the plague from spreading to other members of our extended household. But there was no one to help me. For all the fucking nit picking I did. All the head checks I did on my mother and sister not one fucking person offered to help me, leaving me up one night, de lousing myself, sitting on the bathroom floor, crying.

Ok ok el chileno aka my pololo did offer to help but he wasn't a very effective nit-picker and ended up instead watching me have a low grade breakdown about the whole thing.

The good news is that we are piojo free now. The bad news is that both la Mapu and I are waiting to see what the next crisis will be.

Mami, Do I Tell the School I was Sick?

2006-05-03T15:39:00.000-04:00

La MapucheRican asked me this as I scrambled an egg for her breakfast. I had made the decision not to send her to school to honor Monday's strike/boycott. Keeping her homes from school however didn't mean she spent the day watching cartoons or playing video games. It wasn't a day off or a day to be lazy, as some people accuse. While I wasn't able to not work ( I work from home and am self-employed- who was I gonna boycott- my own damn self?). I didn't spend a damn penny and was able to go with my daughter to a smaller that the Union Square rally, event in our home borough of Queens.

Today I'll find out what my daughter missed in school yesterday but throughout the weekend, I stepped up and taught my own daughter. The meaning of the words boycott and strike were explained as well as a review of the origins of May Day as a labor holiday (she did a biography project on Lucy Parsons for Women's History Month in her school- and yes her school thinks I'm crazy). We discussed immigration. Once at the event I translated the chants from Spanish to English (because like most second generation born latinos, she struggles with her Spanish, despite my best efforts). La MapucheRican was in awe of the number of people and with the 10 blocks filled with people and flags. We ran into people we knew, including her first "boyfriend" the little 6 year old nephew of one of her sitters, and his parents. This made the issue more personal for her.

Soon enough though, she is still a child after all, we left because she was hungry and I had to work.

Back at school yesterday, no one asked her why she didn't go to school. No one apparently really cared.

A Day Without Immigrants

2006-05-01T14:51:00.000-04:00

More pictures from a human chain of solidarity and action in Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC earlier today can be seen on my Flickr page.

A Big Song and Dance About Song Nuesto Himno

2006-04-28T15:54:00.000-04:00

Wow I have never seen people get so worked up over a song. Just read all the racist blindly nationalistic comments on the issue over at the blog I write on.

Poem on Your Blog Weekend

2006-04-28T12:26:00.000-04:00

I just read about this Poem on your Blog Weekend over at fellow NYC blogger Ron's blog and it seems only fit to post well a poem and step up and put my poems where my earlier blog post is and to pledge along with Ktrion to post new writing fearlessly.

Untitled

Before I knew any better,
I knew you.
We namelessly shared Avenue C fluorescent lit hipster deli aisles
selling overpriced bottled american dreams of youth and health
neither one of us was buying.
The smell of your weed and whiskey had already
made love to the smell of my red wine and sex
without the slightest contact between our physical bodies.
Our sensual fingerprints had been sharing the same room for months
as witnessed by communal poems drunkenly scribbled on the walls.

I heard you,
familiarly accented sound waves,
between inhales of cigarette smoke and long swigs of beer.
I didn't need to see you
before feeling
sing-songy accented vibrations
that impregnated me years before
and penetrated more than my wandering womb.
Yes,
I tasted that tongue
before it was slipped inside my mouth
when we finally went underground,
together.

Ranking oppression

2006-04-28T09:25:00.000-04:00

People really need to head over to Blackademic and read Nubian's post on the ranking of oppression in the feminist movement, its role in the Duke Rape case, and some of the disgusting but not surprising comments from people who still don't/won't step back to get it.

Writing My Voice

2006-04-28T09:02:00.000-04:00

Soy egoista. Well at least I like to play off like I am. Like when I get up on stage at a tertulia and spit broken spic Spanish poems with fucked up grammar and then smile graciously as people tell me how honest my work is, how real, how it has personality, and is pure and unrestrained by rules like I planned it that way. Scary thing is that I don't feel that fucking brilliant. I don't feel that fucking deep or talented. I feel lazy and stupid and like I said last night in a poem I am working on:

I live in the only sovereign state that I know, the state of insecurity

Despite all the kindness and ego stroking accolades I feel like my writing, the process and its results , is immature and insecure. Despite the years of being considered a poet, a writer, a blogger - I have hidden myself from criticism and critique.

Does it come from the fact that the first time I took stage to perform something outloud, at age 16 my mother said that a ghetto spic Puerto Rican accent came out and I was made to feel ashamed of that. Or maybe its the insecurity of language, the broken Spanish poems, the spanglish the English that doesn't allow to me fit into the niche of being a Spanish writer or an English writer. I once dated a Latino writer who was critical of the way I used language, saying it cheapened me and my work. His male privilege, his educational privilege with his MFA trumped my female uneducated voice. At least that's how it felt. There is no capital, no money, no time for me to run off to writing workshops and school. How about the rejection letters, the not playing by the rules and not spitting out the Spic Chic Lit I see in the chain bookstores.

I treat my writing like a privilege. It comes after editing the work of others and helping children learn proper grammar while developing their own style and voice. It comes after making sure my child's homework is done and making sure she is fed, clothes, and educated. It comes after everything. Scraps of stories and poems languish , missing deadlines and submission dates. There is no room of my own. My writing is interrupted constantly by requests and vacuuming and cries for food and attention and I feel guilty saying no, I am working on something that is mine. Thus I devalue my own work, my own voice.

My writing, the process and its results, is layered like my life. Complex.

After my performance the other night one man asked why I hated men. Another man who missed my performance asked if I did my angry poetry. Another man complimented the rawness of my work but added that he was happy to hear me writing about love. Because apparently writing about abortions and rape and colonialism, and identity , and sex is unbecoming. Writing about a relationship, especially a heterosexual relationship, that's an acceptable, more palatable theme.

Only one women, a mujer, said something to me about understanding the voice and style that I choose, that I am in my writing.

Mil gracias to Pomegranate Queen for making me think more about this and for opening the online discussion on the theme. A thousand and one thanks for her stepping up and creating a new space where women and trans writers of color can share, critique and give our writing, the process and results, the value it deserves.

Another Miercoles, Another Tertulia

2006-04-27T09:49:00.000-04:00

Mil gracias to all of you who gave me so much love at last night's tertulia. It was wonderful to see each and every one of you, especially the people I hadn't seen in a minute. I monopolized the stage for a bit but no one really seemed to mind and it felt good to be in front of a crowd after about a month of not performing. Last night there were Gypsy Junkies, bellydancers, jokes, stories, and of course poets. There are pictures, unfortunately none are of me because someone (I'm not naming names)forgot to.
Better yet just come to the next tertulia so you can see it all in person.

NYC - Fusion Atomica Tertulia Featuring la Mala

2006-04-25T10:57:00.000-04:00

Obviously that's not me, it's my friend and fellow poeta Diego Vargas at the last Fusion Atomica tertulia. This Wednesday (tommorow), April 26th, Fusion Atomica presents its Tertulia featuring Latino/Spanish language spoken word, writing, and music. This week's featured poeta is yours truely, la Mala, with my usual mix of Nuyorican politics and angry single mami putita rants. Hell I may even do a love poem. The event is free and the spot, D'Antigua offers plenty of options for food and drink. I will be performing in English and Spanish.

Wednesday, April 26
Tertulia Fusion Atomica @ D'Antigua Lounge/Restaurant
84-16 Northern Blvd Jackson Heights, NY
9 pm until .....
#7 train to 82nd Street

For more info visit - http://www.fusionatomica.com/home.php?id=5
or email me at mamitamala@yahoo.com