I can’t go to sleep if the closet door is open. And I have to make sure the toilet paper is inserted the right way. Yes, there is correct way. Oh, and if I one hand or foot gets wet, I have to wet the other hand or foot. If I don’t, I get really uncomfortable, almost to the point of feeling pain.
These are my OCD (obsessive compulsive) tendencies. I think there are more, but I don’t want to seem too weird.
La Pregunta: What are your OCD tendencies?
I currently do not have a crush.
Anyone who has known me for more than a minute knows this is weird. Chispa noted after I posted my 100 facts that in the nearly 10 years we’ve known each other, she’s never known me not to have a crush. Well, that was because most of the time we’ve known in each other, I was actually meeting lots of eligible young men. These days, most of the guys I interact with are ethically off-limits (married fellow grad students, undergrads in the program I work with). I just don’t get out that much.
I love crushes. Well, not the aspects that suck. You know, getting nervous around him and trying to analyze all his mixed signals (which you later learned weren’t mixed, but you just made things more complicated).
I love the beginning of the crush. I miss realizing that I like him and maybe he likes me too. That feeling makes me giddy. I’ve even been known to swoon, just ask anyone who was around late last summer when I met my last crush. It’s a nice feeling and I miss it. I think I might even be addicted to that feeling (which makes a lot of sense if you listen to Radiolab’s This is Your Brain On Love episode from last August).
I think I got addicted to it after my first crush. I was in first grade. My crush, Juan, was in second grade. Yes, he was Mexican and short. No, he did not have a goatee. I don’t know any seven year old who can grown facial hair. I liked Juan enough to get self-conscious about my appearance. The bad aspects of crushes start early on! I worried that he wouldn’t like me because my mom made me wear my hair in two trenzas (braids). I thought the trenzas made me look like a baby — nevermind that at 6 years old I was still a baby.
I don’t remember why I stopped liking Juan, but 20 years later, I’m going to blame the demise of my crush on my older brother. Danny and Juan became really good friends. (In fact, they’re still good friends after 20+ years.) At six, I understood that siblings’ friends were off-limits, or at the very least weird. Naturally, I stopped liking Juan. Instead, I became friends with Juan and when I was 14 I asked him to be one of the chambelanes in my quinceañera. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Juan, but he’s since had a child and gotten married.
La Pregunta: Do you remember your first crush? Tell me about him/her.
I felt annoyed when she said it.
Boston — a young white woman I had just met — tried to tell me how I was related to my relatives.
“No,” she said. “She’s not your niece. She’s your second cousin.”
Boston was talking about Desiree.
Desiree is my cousin Patty’s daughter.
So here’s the connection:
Papá Chepe and Mamá Toni have 8 kids. The first is my Madrina Chilo. The sixth is my mom, Luz.
Eventually, Madrina Chilo and my mom got married and began their own families. Madrina Chilo has four children, Bibi, Patty, Tony and Gonzalo. About 10 years later, my mom and dad started their own family. They copied my Madrina Chilo and Padrino José and have two boys and two girls. I’m one of those kids.
So, that makes me first cousins with Bibi, Patty, Tony and Gonzalo, right? Simple enough.
Now, when my Madrina Chilo’s kids started getting married and having families of their own, I was told by my aunts and Mamá Toni (grandmother) that Patty and Gonzalo’s kids were my nieces and nephews.
Okay. I believed them. I had no reason to doubt them. I was only 6 years old or so when Gonzalo’s first daughter was born. Since then, many other cousins have started families. Their kids have never called me tía Cindy even if they’re informed that I’m their aunt and not their cousin.
Now, back to Boston.
Back when I tried to explain the connection between Desiree and I, Boston insisted that Desiree and I were second cousins. Huh?
My second cousins were the children of my mom and dad’s first cousins. Sure, Boston had annoyed me, but I just brushed it off until I recounted the exchange with X. He had a similar experience.
Las Preguntas: The whole thing got me wondering if Mexicans (or raza in general) see family relationships and labels differently than white people. Who is a second cousin? Who can be called a niece or a nephew?
Photo: Anthony’s (cousin Tony’s son) first birthday party, April 2005.
Denise and El Chavo got me thinking recently about all the things our families did/do to save a buck.
Denise discussed outfitting her five seven kids in hand-me-downs. El Chavo bravely reviewed the unappetizing huevos rancheros breakfast burrito and discussed Chicanos’ longtime reliance on the breakfast burrito. The breakfast (or lunch) burrito is a cheap alternative to fast food.
My mom used both of these methods. She’d find name brand baby clothes at yard sales in the “heights” of Hacienda Heights. Lori got my old dresses (even if she didn’t look as cute as I did). My mom would make dresses for me and Lori and any store bought clothes came from the sale rack. As for burritos, we’d eat them on road trips. Trips to Disneyland meant packing sandwiches in a cooler and stepping out to the car for lunch. We never ate lunch in the park (but I think we might have been treated to a churro, but we had to share). I’m sure our tortas were much better than overpriced burgers.
La Pregunta: What did your parents do to save a buck or two? Have you continued any of these practices?
I don’t set resolutions. I don’t even set definite goals (at least not that I share here). So this isn’t going to be about resolutions.
This questions comes thanks to a friend from Austin. I felt like he was interviewing my over dim sum, which was kinda cool. When he asked me the question, it was easy to answer the first part of the question since I did a lot of new things in 2007. The experience that stuck out most was scuba diving Cozumel. It was more difficult than I expected. I freaked out at the weirdness of being able to breathe underwater, and I love being underwater. Luckily, I had a really great (and patient!) instructor who made the whole process smoother. Still, I regret being too nervous about breathing normally, checking my pressure gauge and making sure to periodically pop my ears and get water out of my mask to really enjoy the experience. I definitely want to go diving again, especially after checking out Jeff’s photos from diving in Jamaica.
When my friend asked the question, it was difficult to come up with something new other than saying I planned to visit Austin in 2008. I’ve got a better vision of 2008 now that the new year has started. I’ve been inspired by my friends (hi, Awkward Turtle) and I’m going to propose. Yup, I’m going to write my dissertation proposal and get one step closer to being Dr. Cindylu. I guess you can call that a goal.
La Pregunta: What’s something you did in 2007 that you had never done before? What’s something new you want to do in 2008?
Photo above: Adrian, Cain (neighbor back in HH, brother’s best friend), Danny, and Luis (our instructor)
Lotería Chicana 