"you're only puerto rican when you have to fill out a form."

you work too much, you said. life is too short, zaida. you gotta have fun. come on, come over!

but i have a child that needs new clothes and sneakers and lunch money and school supplies, and i have bills up to my eyeballs, and i want daniel to do what he loves and that means cooking 9 hours a day and that always means a smaller paycheck, and my puppies havent gone to the vet in a year, and we cant afford health insurance so that cavity is getting worse, and the eviction is never-ending and the lawyers are costing $300/hr, and...

the wedding.

im missing out on life with all this working.
i have for a long time.
there is always some bill to be paid, some shit to be done.
some piece of shit cheap thing i bought that needs to be replaced.
probably from ikea.

im tired and cranky and i want to bitch and moan to you, james, because you always had a funny come back and my crying of frustration would end up in tears of laughter and joy.

saturday night i had a dream with just me you and ryan. ryan was much older, and you took us to some indoor fair of some sort, like they have at javits, and it was mostly furniture and such, and you walked us around the booths, ooohing and ahhing. you said you needed to go to florida to pick up your bookcase (or armoir, something like that) and when i pointed to all the new ones you said no, you wanted the one you had. you suggested that on our way to florida we dropped ryan off in college or his new home out of state dunno, and then pick up your bookcase and drive back. again i said, just buy a new one! and again you said,

shuddap-a-your-face! it will be fun. youre driving.

and i woke up crying because you had this attachment to everything you owned. every single thing had a story, some background, someone or funny story was associated with it - to us it was just furniture - but to you it was the time we went to ikea when you first moved to battery and you were so hyped and made of fun of how now im the only one living in the ghetto. and so we bought a ton of shit and tried to put it together and that took all weekend because there was a song to be played or a movie to be watched or a cake to be made. so we picked out and bought the bar stools and your bed and the rug and and the cabinets with the glass and why you gotta bite me, yo? step off my dick son. as if you are the only person to ever buy shit from ikea. and how we put the glass in the wrong way and you said nobody will notice. our secret. and how many times we rearranged your bedroom because it was driving you crazy, and like how we went to buy that eggplant sofa that you were stalking and you forced me to drive all the way downtown just to see it because you were in love yet again, and i brought ryan and we were all like, purple? really?

or how whenever i was there you never used the dishwasher except to let the dishes dry or how you went estamos boosting because you didnt want to spend money or how you kept the "good toilet paper" on the top left hand shelf where i couldnt reach and told me that it was for special girls only and i didnt count, oh and that i peed too much stop drinking already.

or how you told ryan a different story about the cut on your chin.

every.
single.
time.

or how i gave you the vibrating bullet i got as a gift from one of my lovers, after you wouldnt put it down i might add, and you bothered the shit out of everyone with it, in public, like it wasnt a sex toy.

dude, it's a sex toy. you cant take that to work!! you will get fired!

i kinda miss the crazy. being sane and normal is boring as shit.

your legacy of insanity will live on through me, in private, i suppose.

just ask daniel.

i just found out the other night that he almost committed me to bellvue after you died.

i probably needed it, but im glad he didnt.

i mightve gotten too comfortable with not having to work.

"once you go rican, a job you'll be seekin"

she's like the female version of you, accept she gets paid.

xx zaida xx