an ass out of you and me

¨Never assume, because it will make an ass out of you and me.¨- Anon

Whoever said that was pretty damn wise.

Today, I assumed the worse on a situation that panned out perfectly and nearly drove myself insane while thinking about it at work. While sitting in a meeting earlier, all I could think about is a text message from SWSNBN confirming what I had already surmised. I humbly accepted that I was wrong in hour that followed and celebrated by getting a Chipotle burrito.

It´s ok to be wrong but damn it is not fun being wrong and stressing about it for, like, 3 hours before anything has even happened.

Anyways, Martin let me get his AirPods and my pants button came off while I was on the train this morning. Everything happens for a reason, though. I left about 30-45 minutes earlier for some odd reason and was able to loop back around and get what I needed (aka a change in outfit). I made it to SoHo on time, found a coffee shop that sells ice coffee for a humanly price, and made it to work early.

Currently I am on my fire escape. This thing is awesome.

Un Buen Día

Ayer, no tuve un buen día trabajando. Llegué tarde a una reunión, dejé mi botella de agua a la casa, y me perdí tambien. Anoche me dije a mi mismo que tendría un día diferente, y olivdaría mis faltas de ayer. Aunque dejé la botella de agua de nuevo hoy, no me paró de tener un día bastante bueno.

La primera cosa que hice fue decirle a mi jefe lo siento por llegando tarde a la reunión ayer. De verdad, no sabía el lugar que la estaríamos. Recibió la disculpa sonriendo, y me dijo que él no me notó llegar tarde. Tambien, terminé con la mayoria de mis entrenamientos y seguí de leer el libro que empecé hace 4 días.

Hoy fue el primer día que tuve amigos a mi apartamento. Las leyendas de Marymount llegaron a las 8 y nos disfrutamos algunas cervecitas en el techo de mi hogar. Martin trajó empanadas desde una restaurante en Queens que fueron tan ricos. Caminé con mis amigos desde mi apartamento a la puerta para decir ¨chao¨, y regresé a mi cuarto para otra cerveza.

Today was a good day.

First Day Out Tha Field

Chesterfield. You tell someone that you are from there and their response will most definitely be ¨what the hell is a Chesterfield?¨, unless they just so happen to be from there.

Their response is nothing new. Chesterfield is not some small town. In reality it is one of the largest counties in Virginia. Everybody almost knows everyone in CField. You knew that one girl who went to that party with that one dude who used to ride the bus with the girl next door, if you see what I am saying.

Like most places, CField makes you feel like you are, more or less, trapped. We escaped to 20 minutes north to Richmond and make it our playground to feel what it is like outside of the field. Long walks down Broad at 2 AM make you feel alive. That $2 from Christians at 1:30 is the best slice of pizza you will have in your entire life for the measly 10  minutes it lasts. A different landscape.

Everyone wants to get out. Whether it be getting to Richmond, Norfolk, or anywhere that doesn´t include NoVa, us Chesterfieldians want to get a breath of fresh air that isn´t laced with Salisbury moms, Chester pickup trucks, Cosby nose-jobs, Midlo ignorance, or Bon Air brats.

When I graduated from VCU, my plan was to head to DC. I love it , and I really cannot explain why. Long story short, I applied for a job in DC and ended up moving to NYC, back to CField, and then back to NYC again. But this time, it´s forreal.

It is definitely a jump from taking the Powhite 10 minutes to Cary Street to go hang with my buds on Floyd or anywhere else, but it´s that breath of fresh air that I´ve been longing for. A place of my own. 

My college experience was laced with long nights and endlessly crashing on my friends´ couches. And to be quite honest, those were some of the best times of my life. But change is good. This time, I´ll be offering the couch to stay on, or the glass of water, or the geeb.

This is just the beginning.

life is brazy. no cap.

Everything is so weird right now. I come back home for an undefined amount of time and get the call that I am going back to work in a few days. I am more shocked than anything... One would think that your employer would give you more than a few days notice on when you would be going back to work. But such is life. You have to be malleable. You have to be like, like water? Is that what the saying is? Shit, I dunno.

Stuff like this happens when you begin to get comfortable where you are, too. I honestly thought that I was going to be here until the end of the month, maybe even into July. Even still, New York decided to begin the reopening phase for the city just yesterday. I guess the government was exuberant to get this show on the road.

This is the album that I have been listening to since
I learned that I was going back to work. If you know,
you know.
 

I talked to someone earlier about how climate change is unleashing old pathogens, and when I say old I mean ancient, that have been underground for who knows how long. She told me that this is just the beginning. God I hope not...

Life really is crazy. No bap. 

Diario Diario

De nuevo, ha sido mucho tiempo entre hoy y la ultima vez que había escrito. Me estoy sentando abajo un árbol, disfrutando la sombra. Estoy escuchando a la canción ¨La Chica de Ipanema¨. La gente que organiza la manifestaciones exclamó que habría otra hoy a las 5 de la tarde. Desde el viernes pasado, la ciudad ha sido en fuego, y cuando digo en fuego, lo digo en serio. Lxs manifestantes incendiaron un autobús y coche de la policía, y tambien destruieron unas de las tiendas más conocidas y famosas en la ciudad. Doy mis condolencias a los trabajadores que perdieron sus trabajos como resultado de la violencia, pero no es tan importante a mí como se siente el dueno.

Él ha trabajado con companias grandes come Nike y Guess. La gente sabe que su cartera no va doler nada. La cosa que me hizo pensar diferente la imagen publica del dueno es un foto que puso en Instagram de un tanque con la leyenda que dice ¨Gracias Dios¨. Sí, entiendo que estás triste sobre la destrucción de tus tienditas, pero no ves la razon que hay los cuerpos en la calle? Es porque hay una lucha enorma contra de la gente como tú. Incluido a Virgil Abloh, quien solamete donó $50 USD al movimiento de liberar las personas equivocadas del cárcel. Leí hoy que el poder política viene desde el canón de un arma, y seguimos más adelante de hacer esta frase verdadera, para la gente.

Our State of the Union

What is a revolution? By definition, it is the forcible overthrow of a government or social order, with intent for a new system to replace it. This weekend, we were able to see what a ¨revolution¨ meant to the hundreds and thousands of people that have decided to take to the streets in their respective cities. One could say that the primary actor in the violence sustained these last couple of weeks was the unjustifiable murder of George Floyd. Simply put, it´s another act of police brutality that our nation has become tired of being numb to, and decided to raise hell to react to it. Richmond saw its population take to Broad Street and break down the barriers that local businesses put up. Monument Avenue felt the momentum of protesters graffiti the Confederate monuments. A GRTC bus got set on fire, along with a cop car that may have been planted. Officers were in the streets macing peaceful protesters, and snagging them from crowd like they were picking apples at Carter Mountain on a cold September evening. This is our current state of the union.

Does revolution work? Does breaking the silence actually make real noise? I´m gonna do my best to not get too history intensive and only bring up a few examples of how revolution has been used in the past. One of the most influential, in my opinion, revolutions was the Haitian Revolution. Haiti was the first country in the Western Hemisphere and in the Caribbean region to gain its independence. And to make the story even better, it was definitively a slave revolution against their French colonizers. Touissant Louverture successful lead against his colonizers was something that Africans in this time period had never seen before. I think that fact speaks more to how potent a revolution can be. Touissant proved to not be such a great leader post-revolution, and Haiti found herself owing reparations to the French.

The Bolshevik Revolution is another one. I´m not too keen on Eastern Euro-Chinese history, so hear me out. Lenin and his team were able to dismantle the czarist rule in through a series of demonstrations and strikes. They suffered through Bloody Sunday. They endured the February Revolution by taking to the streets and ignoring the calls by officials to subdue themselves to the Soviet Union´s imperial rule. Eventually, Czar Nicholas left the throne, and hurdled the Soviet Union into a new form of rule.

Is that not what revolution is about? Breaking the norms in an effort to achieve a new form of governance? I cannot speak on contemporary Russia or Haiti and give an accurate or fair description of what has happened since their dated revolutions, but simply put, their violent actions were able to communicate a message that they could not get across prior being peaceful. A controversial quote from Mao states that ¨Political powers grows of out the barrel of a gun¨. As the days have gone by and the protests have warranted lethal force from authorities, this quote seems less and less to be something that is specific to communists or hard left leaning political ideologies. It makes sense that police brutality against majority POC is part of a political ideology that aims to suppress those who don´t look like those in the highest positions in the world. Their weapon of choice is double barreled in that it can take one´s life away and simultaneously put more power into the most powerful´s hands. Just some food for thought during these trying times.

In other news, I´m about to order Thai food.