31, UCLA & finding my religion

It’s hot out there, folks. Stay hydrated.

***

I got through the work day with some help from my Puro Pedo Magazine colleagues. We started making up titles for fake research papers on Latino movies. I offered up a few including “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans: Poch@ identity formation in Selena.

That’d be a neat dissertation topic, no? I’m already interested in racial/ethnic identity formation… it could happen. Or not.

I should probably just focus on Latino college students majoring in the sciences. I find those kids interesting. Just don’t ask me to remember their names.

Yesterday afternoon, one of the sophomores in the Program (aka Job1) spotted me at St. Augustine, a church in Culver City. I’ve passed by dozens of time while driving and running, but had never attended a service there. We got to St. Augustine with 15 minutes to spare before Mass and walked around the grounds. As we walked toward the school and parking lot, two young women passed by. The woman in a yellow sundress doubled back.

“Cindy!”

I was surprised she knew my name. She picked up on this.

“Hi! I’m in [program]! I’m a sophomore.”

“Oh, hi! Um… you’ll have to tell me your name, I forget students’ names all the time.”

I felt so embarrassed that I didn’t recognize her at all. The name thing happens more often. After their fall quarter freshman seminar, I only see the 80+ students a few times a quarter and interact with them mainly through email. I’d have to make flash cards to remember everyone’s names. I see current/former [Program] students all the time on campus, but have never seen one off campus unless it was a UCLA-related event.

She told me her name and I introduced her to Sean. I told her it was our fist time visiting St. Augustine, her home parish. She invited us to grab some food and cake at the anniversary celebration for the sisters associated with the parish, but we were full.

I’ve been pretty spotty on Mass attendance since going away to college. I’m working on getting back in the habit thanks to Fr. Ricky at St. John Vianney. When Sean and I met with him about having our wedding at SJV, he reminded me that I need to practice my faith as part of my preparation for the sacrament of marriage. Attending only on holidays, Lent and the occasional wedding wasn’t going to cut it.

Sean — who grew up Lutheran — has been accompanying me to Mass. When we’re in Hacienda Heights on a Sunday, we go to SJV. When we’re in LA (most Sundays), we’ve been going to St. Timothy in Rancho Park. Yesterday we skipped their noon service in favor of the 5 pm youth service at St. Augustine in Culver City. I generally like youth services, they’re much livelier. I like St. Timothy, but I haven’t been able to make it through a service without breaking in to giggle fits thanks to a man his 60s/70s always sits front and center. First, he has an interesting look. He has a big belly, a beard and long gray/white hair he twists so it sits atop his head (kinda like a Snork). His hair makes him easy to spot. Second, he draws out the final word of hymns long after everyone else has finished singing. It’s rather odd to hear his deep voice hang over with “eviiiiiiiil” or “peeeeeeace” in an otherwise silent church. The first time he did it, we were surprised. The next few times we tried unsuccessfully to suppress giggles.

I need to pick a new parish. SJV is great, but I won’t go to Mass weekly if I have to drive 30-45 minutes just to make it there. St. Augustine offers more Masses, including a Spanish service at noon and the youth service at fives. St. Timothy’s latest service is at noon and it’ll help me work on keeping a straight face.

Any tips on choosing a church or parish?

Corriendo

Will run 18 miles for bacon, birria and beer

The Long Beach Marathon is 6 weeks away. This means I’m two-thirds of the way through my second round of marathon training. So far, I’ve been doing okay. I haven’t stuck to my training plan 100%. Who does? I occasionally skip a recovery run or easy 30 minute workout in the middle of the week. For my first few track sessions, I ran similar mileage on the road instead of heading to the track. I’m running everything faster. Not sure if that’s just because I’m improving or because I didn’t donate blood in the middle of training. Probably a little of both, but more the latter.

I wavered on running a fall marathon because I knew I’d be doing most of my long runs alone. For the LA Marathon in March, I ran all 16+ mile long runs (and one 10 miler) with the Students Run LA team at the high school in my neighborhood. I did my longest run with another SRLA team in the Valley. I really enjoyed training with SRLA, it’s one of the reasons I want to run the LA Marathon again. For those long runs, I didn’t need to do much prep work aside from fill my water bottles and bring my gels/chomps. I could have left those behind as parent volunteers staffed aid stations along the course, but I wanted to get used to taking gels and didn’t want to use up the students’ food/drinks. The coaches planned out routes that were both challenging and similar enough to the marathon course (or on the course) to get us well prepared. They also had tips on how to strategically run the race.

I also didn’t know if it’d be a hot summer or would be mild like last summer. Luckily, it’s been the latter and I’ve been blessed with cloudy skies for most of my long runs. This weekend was probably the hottest of the summer. I woke up at 5 to avoid the heat, but couldn’t avoid the sunshine once the sun rose. By the time I finished three hours later, I was a sweaty, salty mess. If this heat continues through September, I’ll have more pre-sunrise wake-up calls.

Yesterday’s long run was my second 18 miler. I ran the first 5 miles with Sean before our routes diverged. He ran 11 miles, a personal distance record! I continued on through Westwood, Brentwood and Santa Monica before heading back toward Palms. I ran almost the same route as last week at a similar pace (9:41 vs 9:44), but with more water stops. Long Beach is much less hilly than my long run routes, so I’m hoping the extra hill training will help me out on race day. In the winter, I was very sore after my 18 mile long run even with an ice bath. This time around, I don’t need much else than a massage with The Stick. Later in the day I was sleepy (even with a nap), but I still was able to dance a bit at my uncle’s party.

One thing that hasn’t changed from training in winter to summer is that I’ve still got a monster appetite after running for a few hours and burning nearly 2,000 calories. Like Winnie the Pooh, my appetite improves with some exercise. I thought it would be fun to document what I ate on a long run day:
Continue reading →

Cultura

The curious case of Zoë Saldana

Yesterday during my regular pedicure at my local nail salon, I picked up a copy of the September issue of Latina Magazine. I used to subscribe years ago and then let my subscription lapse. Aside from the constant code-switching which always felt forced and inauthentic. I don’t dislike code-switching or Spanglish. I speak and write like that, but I also recognize that it’s tough to write and make it feel natural. I did appreciate that their models were often real women and they were not 5’10 and 115 pounds.

I haven’t paid much attention to them lately, at least not positive attention. A few weeks ago, I heard about their inane list on 10 Latinas who have played “the help” in movies or television shows. It was a tie-in to the movie of the same name. For obvious reasons, there was a bit of social media outcry. It wasn’t about the perceived status of maids, nannies or domésticas; their work is valued and important. Instead, the criticism arose from the tone deafness of the article. There was no criticism about the lack of meaningful roles for Latinas and Latinos. The blurb about Lupe Ontiveros mentioned her estimate that she has played a maid 150 times, but was in no way critical of the fact that she didn’t have many other opportunities.

Anyway, as I flipped through the magazine, I checked out the details of Zoë Saldana’s photo shoot. On the same page, they included thumbnails of her previous covers for the magazine in May 2006 (far left above) and June/July 2009 (middle). I was surprised to see the change in skin tone between her first cover and subsequent covers. I know all magazines do a lot of touching up, but it’s interesting to see how much they’ve lightened her up over the years. Way to celebrate Afro-Latinas, Latina Magazine.

Fotos, Listed

31, East Village & NY near misses

Things Sean missed after leaving New York and moving to LA:
– Several blizzards (except for the one that delayed his move 3 days)
– The second hottest day in New York City history
– An earthquake
– A hurricane

Things Sean misses about LA and wants to do when we return to NY in the fall:
+ Play football with ZogSports
+ Visit various restaurants
+ Walk/take the train everywhere
+ Wear his fall coats again (he gave them to his brother before he left)
+ Go to happy hour with friends
+ See family, of course
+ Hopefully see the Yankees in the playoffs

Mexico

Desert blood

This morning on my way to work, I heard a KPCC story by Adolfo Guzmán about the English translation of “Los Muertos” a poem by María Rivera about the thousands of victims of drug violence in Mexico. The poem reads like a litany of cities, towns, victims and the violent acts committed against them. [Los Muertos/The Dead English translation]

In the afternoon, shortly before I left work, I saw Daniel Hernández’s tweets about several deaths after arsonists started a fire Monterrey casino.

“Four armed persons entered and began to say: ‘Everybody leave! Everybody leave!’ ” she said. The woman said she ran out a door to a parking lot, but many others fled to the second floor of the casino.

The witness said the attackers, wearing white masks, did not fire weapons or hurl grenades, as some early news reports had suggested. “They started to throw gasoline. There was no grenade attack,” she said.

A line from Rivera’s poem came back to me “… their bodies burnt.”

#yabasta