NINA FARINA

Blogging from Work

If you don't know, I am a law student Monday through Wednesday, a law clerk Thursday through Friday and I normally spend one day of the weekend studying. Somewhere in there I write and go to poetry thangs. This has made me very tired. I have a feeling that several of my friends are very tired with me.

Feeling tired and sick yesterday I took myself out to dinner after work with a bunch of magazines. The woman going out to dinner by herself post will be written another day.

One of my favorite things in the whole wide world are magazines. Maybe it is because I don't have much time and magazines are a great way to get a lot of info but who knows. My interest vary I read the Economist, Foreign Policy, the New Yorker, Marie Claire, Self, that is enough there are more. I highly recommend Reason.

Foreign Policy is one of my favorites. This month there is an extremely anti Latino article in it by Samuel Huntington (on how Hispanic immigrants are endangering America). I thought he was a political science genius till I read it (I had read several of his other books prior). I was going to prepare a rebuttal, but the article is such drivel. This one gets tossed in the book of John (the blog link to the left). He has this way of reminding me that the old white racist people will be dead soon. And Sammy is getting old.

FYI Foreign Policy is still one of my favorites. There is also a great human rights article in this edition. I like them because they are neither conservative or liberal, they present work by a variety of different people AND they do book reviews for books written in non-English languages -huntington be damned ;-).

Note: I just added my friend Jesse's blog. He is a very interesting person. It should make for good reading. The only reason I am posting this is so that the link comes up immediately. muah

Clothes make the man

A wise man once told me that he doesn't like wearing clothes with other people's names on it. I think it is a fairly sound rule and seeing as I can't afford designer clothes it is easier for me to accept. I still don't know why people like being human billboards. Of the clothes that I do have with designer names, they were given to me.

You see I have never really cared about what I wear. Because of this I end up becoming like a human doll to certain women in my life, which I don't particularly mind cause I don't care what I wear but I can't walk around naked and I would rather spend my money on other things than clothes. It fascinates me how other people are obsessed with clothes however.

Like in high school (and law school often feels like high school version 2.0) it was so easy to figure out what group somebody was in by how they dressed. I wasn' t in any group, well yes I was, I was in the out caste group. I had a habit of dressing for how I felt like that day. If I wanted to be taken seriously I dressed preppy, if I was depressed I wore black, if I wanted attention I wore a skirt now you could just throw everyone off by wearing a black preppy skirt. It just boggles my mind how much people notice.

When I go to the law school I normally try to dress quasi conservative I guess. When the weather gets warm I can't help but wear sarongs and tank tops (I will get to that later). Yesterday I went to the law school in my "street clothes" which are the clothes I wear on weekends or when I am hanging out with friends. So yeah maybe a tight black skirt, white fish nets and knee high black boots aren't "appropriate" law school gear. However, it amazed me how many people actually rolled their eyes at me, or whispered to their girlfriends. I get the best responses, when I dress like me, from this one girl who claims to be a "friend". I think she really hates me, or at least she hates my free spirit cause all her buttons (figurative and literal) are perfectly buttoned ALL the time. My buttons, well let's just say I don't often wear buttons. I have accepted the fact that most of the people at the law school think I am a flake and I sometimes enjoy stirring the pot as I skip down the halls (yes I literally skip down the halls--not all the time, just when I need an energy kick).

Anywho, if you know me, you know I live to wear sarongs and tank tops. Sometimes I get annoyed because I feel like I am confining myself by wearing them too often--like I am sorta known for it. I have had friends on the street say that they knew it was me cause of the sarong. Here is how it happened. I prefer natural fibers, which doesn't mean that I don't wear synthetics, I just prefer cotton and leather and silk and lace and wool and yes I even have angora sweaters, they keep me warm feel free to throw paint at me. I also like bright colors (though I do think black t-shirts are best for slogans). I also hate wearing shorts. I prefer mini skirts over shorts because years in an environment of skinny white women made me ashamed of the way my thighs spread when I sit down. When you sit down skirts (even mini skirts) give you more coverage than short shorts. So I run around in sarongs and tank tops and I am comfy in cotton and I don't sweat much in the summer because of it and I get to be free and natural and I love it.

Clothes get waaaaaaaay to much attention. I just want to be comfortable and I am more comfortable around people who wear simple clothes...no bling bling big name shit, no this is the hotness of the moment so I got to have it (I don't have a single close female friend who owns a pair of Uggs...thank God)....no pretense. I think my friends just wear what is comfortable and I like them that way.

Men, Women, Gender & Hormones

I've been thinking about gender a lot lately. Mostly about how each gender processes things just a little bit different. Then I realize I am flawing my own rationale because really I am thinking about heterosexual females and heterosexual males leaving out a whole bevy of fun people I love and adore from my transgendered friends to my gay friends to my really I just wanna fuck everything friends

But gender goes beyond sex, by sex I mean actual intercourse. Gender, to me, is a whole series of things. As much as anyone knows anything, I know this.

1) Sometimes a man needs to be treated like a man. I was talking to a girlfriend of mine who is often very single. She was telling me about how she is sick of men who can't dance so she oftens takes the lead on the dance floors. My brain immediately jumped to Oscar's Mercy on the Battlefield. And I guess leading is okay if it is an agreed upon thing*, but I think sometimes you just gotta let the guy twirl you even if you both lose footing. It just makes them feel better.

2) Women need compliments. Men have this habit of just forgetting that the pretty or hot or brilliant women they started dating is the woman in front of them. Maybe that is why women often get pissy when you remark (or spend a long time gazing) about a woman who you know or have just passed on the street. When is the last time you remarked on the woman you are with? Like seriously looked at her and just realized, yes she is hot and let yourself go nuts like it was a totally new body. Try it sometime.

3) Sex. There is so much more to this post but i have to get ready to start my crazy day. I think it will probably get written in bits and pieces. Really this is a lot of obvious stuff, that I think we just forgot to think about.

Cake

I've always hated the phrase, "You can't have your cake and eat it too."
What the hell is the point of having the cake when you can't eat it. I am in several situations where I can't eat my cake and it is annoying me.

I know exactly what the cake taste like, I've tasted it before. I can smell it's sugary sweetest and feel its texture dissolving on the tip of my tongue as it slowly breaks apart BUT now I am in a position where I just get to see the cake.

And I am staring at its beautiful, perfect icing covering textured body and my mouth is getting moist in preparation for it but I can't even have a single bite not even the smallest taste.

Chill with the definitions people

For the record, I am not starting a writer's circle, I am not starting a poetry movement or a women's support group or a reading series or Anything. The idea is patently absurd. (Why it is absurd I will explain later.)

What is happening is this. I noticed that there were two women in my life who have been in my life for almost a year but whom I don't know as well as I would like. I also noticed that we are all Boricua which is why I used the term "Acentas" when inviting one of them over. Being the lawyer that I am I should have realized tha the phrase "Acentos" is trademarked basically and that anytime I use it or a near variation people will think I mean something affiliated with Acentos.

If by affiliated with Acentos, that means three boricuas sitting in my apartment eating mofongo, then fine. But, it means nothing else. And if someone else wants it to mean something else, that will be their job. I am not filling out any leadership applications.

The idea of ME starting anything is absurd. I go to law school, I have a job on top of that. And I will be leaving New York for six weeks this summer and dropping off the radar for 8 to study for finals. And I don't know where I want to live after I graduate. I am not starting shit. I am having some girlfriends over.

I didn't mean for people to start referring to me as "Just Nina". I don't like it. My best friend's dad used to call me Nina String Beana. I think from now on I am just going to change what it says up there every few weeks. As for name, the name is Nina. No "just" no "parrilla".

"What do they put in them, crack?"

There were exactly two years between when I stopped sucking my thumb and when I had my first cigarette. I remember it perfectly, not so much because of the smoking but because of how it happened. My dog had had his first series of seizures and my friend offered me a cigarette to calm me down. Thus an addiction was born.

I didn't start smoking chronically till I was in college. Before then it was a cigarette at a party, or at a punk show or when I was with smokers. In college it got worse. Mostly because my college boyfriend was a smoker. He quit after our freshman year and stayed a non smoker. I would sneak cigarette's at parties or when I was out with the girls. When I would go to Middletown (NY, my home town) it was the worse. I could go through almost an entire pack of cigarette's in four hours if properly drunk. Things stayed like that through pretty much my senior year when within in a six week period, my grandmother died, a three year relationship was ended and my uncle feel into a coma. I was almost at a pack a day. Made all the more serious by the fact that I was on the pill and you should not smoke on the pill. Smoking that much makes me feel like shit, I am tired all the time and groggy and just yucky.

Somehow, towards May I got myself to quit, calm down whatever. I started dating non smokers which really really helped. I wasn't even sneaking cigarettes very often, I would have maybe one every two months. And here is how it happens.

I could be doing absolutely nothing, feeding fish, walking through a park and it'll hit me. The desire for the ritual. Pick up the pack, smack it into the palm of my hand a few times, remove a cigarette, place it on lips, strike a match (I really prefer matches) and inhale. Feel tingle spread through body. Sigh.

I like smoking when I am drinking wine, amaretto, or tequila. I like smoking when I am writing. Lately, I have been editing poems I wrote when I was a "serious smoker" and the desire to do it again hit me. I hadn't had a cigarette since the beginning of November. Last night I got to fulfill my desire. Out with some folk and I got to
stand in the circle of smokers and share just one with a new friend. So delicious, so wonderful, so nice that I only do it occasionally.

I will probably be an occasional smoker for the rest of my life. When the desire to smoke hits me I really try to repress it but eventually it gets to the point where I can think of nothing else. People have a ton of vices and if mine is one cigarette every few months, so be it.

addendum to the post below.
I just received this email from Lexis

"Sorry we were unable to fix your printout situation this morning - please accept these LexisNexis Ultimate Rewards points."

This would be points to enter me in contest the have for prizes. For more of an explanation read below.

Legal Research Wars

So, there are basically two companies which you can do legal research through. Lexis or Westlaw. Once you are an attorney they charge you ridiculous fees in order to for you to access that which should be freely available to everyone (it is freely available just in hard copies, I think it should be freely available online). In order to get you hooked on their services they let you use them for free while you are in law school, give away a ton of free stuff and bend over backwards to help you.

I think that each service has its own pluses and minuses and I jump back and forth depending on what I need done. Today I wanted to use Lexis just to print out four simple cases for my sexual harrassment seminar. I wanted Lexis because it prints out on both sides and I hate wasting paper. However, there was a problem with the printing for some reason. I was cool with that, I just figured I would use Westlaw.

EXCEPT, there is this crazy lady here who works for Lexis who wanted me to pick up there magic red phone (no shitting you there really is a red phone here that dials straight to Lexis headquarters) in order to figure out what was wrong with my print job. This is my day off from work (granted I still have school) and I just don't want to deal with people or explaining shit to people when there is a readily available alternative option.

THEN she actually follows me to the other end of the computer lab to question me further and is now across the room on the red phone watching me. It is crazy, very very crazy. To my end I am sitting here thinking, no matter how much free stuff they give me, in the end when I am an attorney, I am still going to use Lexis to research some things and Westlaw to research others. And no amount of pens, balloons, coffee mugs OR crazy ladies on red phones is gonna change that.

Adventures in Birth Control Land

As folks seem to know I am very pro birth control. I have decided to detail my experiences with birth control just in case any young women are reading this. Below I cover my experience with condoms, the pill, a diaphragm and a few stories along the way.

Honesty, I had sex for the first time when I was 18 to somebody who I went on to date for three years. I knew I was going to beforehand so months earlier I went to the doctor and was prescribed my first pill. The pill is super duper effective if taken properly and I really did love it. Your body chemistry changes every few years so I eventually had to switch brands. Mostly because my mid cycle bleeding had become too much. I never; gained weight because of the pill, got acne because of the pill, my breast never got any bigger. I did; become extremely regular (I knew when it was coming down to the hour), I had my cramps decrease, and you get the fun ability to manipulate your period so that you don't get in on vacation.

I loved the security of the pill and I hated condoms. First of all I am allergic to spermicide. Finding this out for the first time utterly sucked. Heat of the moment woohoo and wa pow .... searing burning pain....telling boyfriend to get the hell out of me and jumping into shower...which doesn't exactly work when the problem is internal. Henceforth, no more spermicide. Spermicide only causes this reaction in some people. It may work for you and if it does, use it. It is added protection that adds a lot.

I've also had a condom break on me. I was on the pill so it wasn't so scary HOWEVER, a piece of the condom didn't come out of me till about three days later resulting in a terrible infection. And that really sucked. However, that was one condom breaking in SIX years of sexual activity.

I've been happily on the pill for four years when my cervix became fryable, which means it would occasionally bleed. This really sucked. I found out that the high estrogen in my pill was a contributing factor so I switch to a pill with low estrogen.

Problem, that resulted in me not getting my period. Some chicks may be cool with that, I am not. So after two months on my fourth brand of pills I am going off the pill for the first time in six years. There are pills with many different hormone levels. Eventually you will find the hormone level right for you. It may take a bit but I think it is worth it.

SO adventure in diaphragm land began. The doctor first suggested the IUD. Apparently, it is the most popular birth control in Europe amongst women in their twenties. My doctor doesn't like how American doctors so readily prescribe hormones. It works because it tricks your body into thinking you are pregnant because there is an object attached to your uterus. The IUD now is very different from the way it was decades ago. The are made of plastic and are really small. Personally, I don't like the idea of placing something in my body permanently (you can leave it in for up to ten years). Compared to the pill and other methods it is very cheap.

I decided on a diaphragm and I had to go for a fitting. A fitting!!! I mean how does one measure a vagina. I got rather terrified of the concept but I didn't want to be without a back up method. Really the fitting wasn't that bad. No worse than an annual exam. And really, if you are sexually active you should be going for an annual and you should be getting a pap smear. I mean I got to see my cervix which I had never seen before and that was rather interesting. As for relaxing during an exam. Try yoga breathing. I am the type that gets really tense, but breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth with my hands on my stomach really helps.

The diaphragm goes in pretty much like an OB tampon. I love applicatorless tampons because I am an environmentalist. It was super duper easy and I got it right on the first try. You fold it and push it in and when it gets to the right spot it just opens itself up. You get it out by gently pulling on the rim (and it comes out rather easy). I never thought it would be that easy. You have to be comfortable with your own body. (If you are not comfortable enough with your body to insert a tampon or a diaphragm I really suggest working on it...not just for tampons and diaphragms but because it makes your sex life much better). Diaphragms are around 85-90% effective, which is why I will be using condoms again. Fortunately, I can afford the ones I like .

As to condoms, planned parenthood gives them away or sells them for like next to nothing. If you are not comfortable enough with someone to ask them to wear a condom you shouldn't be having sex with them. If they are not smart enough to wear it because it needs to be worn, you shouldn't be having sex with them. I highly suggest learning how to put a condom on the guy yourself. If you are in a relationship your man will like it, it'll probably turn him on. If you are not in a relationship this could just cut out the "please put the condom on conversation" you could just spring it on him.

There are so many birth control options out there people have very little excuse for not picking one. Legislation has been passed that requires insurance companies to cover birth control and planned parenthood helps those without insurance.

Go to www.plannedparenthood.org

Hope this has been in the least informative

The Sexism is Everywhere

Watching the news this morning and hear the phrase, "erections lasting four hours or more". WHAT THE FUCK!!!! Why is it appropriate to say that on the television but not to show a breast? I mean it is 9:20 on a Sunday morning, who wants to explain that to their young daughter?

And the Universe Shifts

I woke up this story feelings strange. Like everything in the universe had shitfted a little to the left and I am standing in the same spot. Or maybe it is the other way around....who knows.

Amongst a billion other things I have realized that I am not Nina Parrilla. I have been wearing the name for a few months and it just doesn't fit. Really only one person calls me Parrilla and it sounds wierd everytime he says it. I understand that it distinguishes me from all the other Ninas out there and I am not about to completely relinquish it. I am kinda gonna let it stick around till I decide what I want to do with it.

Lots of things happened this week. So much that it is rather overwhelming. I have been trying to have a phone conversation with a friend since Wednesday and it just hasn't happened. I still haven't processed everything that occurred.

Sunday morning, I should be studying, and I am rather in a daze.

LATER-- Reading blogs and stumble across Jessica's and she is writing about how her name sucks and funny enough it starts with Oscar having goggled her name which is how the whole Nina Parrilla thing started. With Oscar googling my name AND Oscar is the only person who calls me Ms. Parrilla. And I mean, how many times do you mention someone's last name?

I am wondering if Oscar has always wanted to change his name but doesn't have the courage to? Maybe he is projecting?

As to you Jessica. Even if there are thousands of Jessica Torreses you are THE Jessica Torres. Blow the name up!

Ever have one of those "God I love Janis Joplin" moments? I am, right now.

Side note: I don't know if you have ever seen those "Domain" commercials but I am figuring that Domain is a furniture store for crazy anal retentive white people. Each and every person in those commercials turns me off to the umpteenth degree. They are scary frankly.

On Models

I really am a space cadet lately. I run and run and then come up to take gulps of air and in those spaces. I have landed in reality TV land.

Yes, ladies and gentlmen the TV is back. Apparently, I got channels all along. I just needed to screw with the reception and one day in a fit of boredom I did. And since my reality is well...okay my reality has been pretty interesting lately frankly....things have been happening. But it is mine so I turn on the TV when I am tired and land in American Idol land to learn that some people truly are completely delusional. But then God gave me

America's Top Model

Here is the kicker. I feel comfortable talking about this cause I have actually done it before. And not for school. I did a stupid modeling thing once during my year off and that was enough. More on that later.

So I am watching America's Top Model and I must admit, I have watched it a few times. Yes, a few. Because...I guess it makes me feel better about my life, it makes me feel superior. The situation these girls put themselves in forces them to be catty and evil to one another. Mostly behind each other's backs though. What I don't get is...

How can models take being a glorified coat hanger so seriously? I mean they just get so intense about it. That was wear I failed. I did one runway show at a club in Boston and realized a) I sucked at it and b) I really didn't like having all that focus on me...not even really me, my legs.

I really just want to run up to run up to models and hand them a sandwhich and tell them that being curvy is really a lot more fun then depriving yourself of dessert or having dessert and throwing it up (throwing up sucks) or snorting lines of coke (which admittedly I have never done....but I have never found putting shit up my nose amusing) in order to stay thin.

I really am just waiting for this one girl to get kicked off the show. The girl who cries every freaking episode. You know who I am talking about. Next Tuesday is Acentos and I may actually have to figure out how to program my VCR. I am so lame.

What did I miss

Janet Jacksons' boobie apparently. I agree with Guy that it is no big deal. I mean if my brother was about to be prosecuted for a crime that I didn't think he committed (though I do think her brother committed the crime he is accused of) I would expose my boobies on TV.

Does anyone else fee like the Super Bowl Half Time show has been taking crack the last few years? I mean seriously, calm your ass down and at least finish one song. Better yet, chill with the everyone on the stage at one time and give me one performer who actually sings their own songs. I just feel like I have to take uppers to be able to keep up with this shit.

And what the hell was Janet wearing when she first came out?
Does anyone know the gender of Kid Rock's drummer? Not that it matters, I am just curious.

Survey Question

What is your favorite movie? Why? Please email me. I'll probably post a list or something after.