NINA FARINA

to lunch from lunch

Okay....if you know me you know I don't bullshit or mince words. I give it honest and raw. I should learn how to be more political but the closest I get to that is silence. Two interesting things happened on my way to and from lunch.

To lunch I was passing all of these schools and outside of the playground at one school staring at the children playing was this old lady. I thought she was being nostalgic but as I walked up to her she says, "Look at them running, they could hurt themselves, it shouldn't be permitted." I just laughed literally couldn't help it. As I walked away all I could think was kids are supposed to run and yes they could hurt themselves, they are supposed to, it is part of being a kid. Just blew my mind seriously blew my mind. Reminded me of a time when I was laughing on a bus with one of my girlfriends and her 8 year old sister. This woman chastised her for laughing to much. Now my girl was ready to cuss this lady out for scolding her lil sis but I just told her...she is probably upset cause she never got to be a kid. sad but true.

From Lunch. I was watching the crowds walk by and reflecting on what one of my wisest profs told me. He tries not to wear stuff that has other people's names on it. I think it is a pretty good rule and I tend to follow it. I hate people who drip with labels. JUST as i am thinking this some fool in serious Roca Wear decides to kick game. And I just had to stay silent. But he is one of those persistent guys who walks with me so I say You know just as you wear walking by I was thinking that I don't like people who cover themselves in clothes with other people's names on them. He looked as if I had slapped him in the face and I was ready for him to tell me I was a bitch. Instead he goes, can I tell you something. I just spent 6 1/2 years upstate in prison and i swore when i got out i was gonna start dressing like a gentleman but my kids convinced me to get these clothes but you are so right ma i am 38 years old i should be dressing like it. He asked for my number again and I said no again but I told him just be you. Let your individuality come out and he just nodded his head and I kept on my way. I hope what I said sticks wtih him

Update

One exam down. Big thanks to Cynthia who actually lit a candle for me at Church. I think that is the sweetest thing ANYONE has done for me in a looooooong time. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends. Then, another friend took me out for Sangria and appetizers which was the greatest ever. Just sitting in the sun with cool peeps talking about everything.

So I have two exams to go. Copyright is next, Tuesday afternoon and Legislation is Thursday afternoon. I am very very very scared of my copyrights exam. Half of it is closed book and all you get is a copy of the Copyrights statute which is HUGE. I swear makes me want to cry. You can't even use your own copy. Gulp :-(

Dear Gentleman friends who come over my house,

Today when I went to clean my toilet bowl I noticed an ample amout of urine around the outer rim of my toilet (the part that is normally covered by the toilet seat). I live by myself because I like things my way. I may be a cluttered person but I am constantly bleaching my bathroom and the clutter is my choice. If you come to my house and use my toilet bowl not only must you put the seat down afterward but please if you tinkle in an undesignated area take a second grab some toilet paper and wipe it up. I promise I will keep your bathroom in the order you would like it kept in.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Nina

Get a free scope of ice cream AND help children become literate

Interesting side affect to last night: I am so emotionally drained that I can actually focus on my studies.
As to the night itself, I will write tomorrow after my exam. Wish me luck.

Gotta love the truth

Random Thoughts

1. I am having trouble figuring out my set for tonight. Got lots of new stuff, lots of deeply personal stuff, I've decided to put it all out there. Just don't know in what order.

2. When you know you are going broke, the first thing you should do is go grocery shopping. Got not much money, but I do have lots of food.

3. Studying for finals really really sucks. One test 90% of my grade, it does not measure what I learn, just how fast I can regurgitate it. No one at a firm would come up to me and require that I cover ever employment law topic in 3 hours.

4. Stayed last night for more the one round of the slam at 13, got really pissed, just reminded me why slam doesn't rub me right. I think the thing that was really annoying was that I watched this one judge love a poem, she laughed, she emotional responded, she rode every word and then gave it a low score. I don't know where the fuck that came from. I really think maybe she was judging on what she thought poetry "should be" so that, even since she was enjoying the poem since it didn't fit what her brain told her a poem should be she didn't give it a high score. Either that or she is nuts.

5. In my sexual harrassment seminar yesterday we were talking about the dynamic of young female associates at law firms and how in most firms it is not really healthy and supportive (the class had no men in it). One of my classmates pointed out, well really that is what it is like here. Someone else said, I think that is what it is like everywhere. I said, Not at a Women's College. Wellesley I miss you.

Today, please click the link to Margaret Cho's blog

On a very less important side note, I am watching GMA and they have on these parents and their kids because they participate in child beauty pagents. It is making me sick to my stomache...seriously. These lil girls are wearing more make up than I do and their mother's have placed these tiaras on their heads that would come up to my knee if they were placed on the floor. Sick sick sick sick

Faith, Hope and Love

I haven't put a Bible quote on here in a long time. And I don't think you need to be a Christian to appreciate what I am about to cut and paste below. Just interpret the words as you need to to get to the ultimate point, which is striving for peace (internal and external). Personally, I think that God is a force, he is the force that connects as all and is in everything. This is only my interpretation. I truly feel that there is "one truth, but many paths." Find whatever path leads you to your truth.

I really feel that if we focus our lives on putting love into the world everything else will take care of itself.


Do Not Worry (Matthew 6)

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


The Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22)

34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the first and greatest commandment.

39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

And this last one is my favorite. It has been posted before and will be posted again

1 Corinthians 13


Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[2] but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Music?

If you are going to do a remake of a song you better do it
a. as well
b. much better or
c. different from the original song.

There has been many a remake that has annoyed me, but for the most part musicians tend to stick with the above rules.
Then, there is Jessica Simpson. I can understand why she chose to redo Take My Breathe Away. It was the song that was playing when her and her husband kissed for the first time (yes I watch Newlyweds when I go to my mom's house). HOWEVER
Her rendition of the song is awful, it could kill small animals. She sounds like she doesn't have enough air, which I don't really get cause I really do think she can sing. And I don't get why there wasn't an intervention. Why didn't someone in the studio say, Jessica, baby you have a great set of pipes but not for this one. But NO. Not only did she ruin perfectly wonderful song but it is the kind of bastardization that people MUST play everywhere. So, when I venture to the grocery store and I hear those first airy "notes" I actually proceed to forget what I came there to buy, grab the essentials and leave. I shit you not, that is exactly what happened this morning. It is the direct cause of why I cannot have cafe con pan. Jessica Simpson scared me into forgetting to buy my margarine.

SO WIERD

I reply to Guy's evite and it post my name as Christina Velez which is strange on so many levels.

1. My first name isn't Christina (my name doesn't have an H)
2. Very few people actually call me by my given first name, not even my mom...she calls me Angelica, most folk call me Nina, several call me Lady (seriously i have no clue how i got THAT nickname) and a few call me Cris.
3. I have never attached that name to any of my email accounts
4. I barely ever put my given last name on anything
5. I didn't realize how disattached I am from that name. I have wanted to take my mother's last name for a while and actually seeing my given name and having it attachd to me drives home how much I want to do that.

blah

2 weeks
3 finals
1 feature
1 motion in opposition
1 appeal

Ladies and Gentleman I have a battle plan that includes study breaks. However, the steam needs to be blown off at night with me leaving early (I study best in the AM and like to be up early). I also have very very little money. So what is going on Friday and Saturday night?

de la Vega and Copyright

The difference between art and graffiti is permission. I just read the columbia newspaper's article on de la Vega and he recognizes that difference. That doesn't mean graffiti isn't art. I hold it up as art and recognize that some graffiti is very important. A whole hell of a lot of it, however, is some kid shouting out his name. So, how do we tell the difference? We don't. Art is art to somebody and I don't feel that I have a right to define if for anyone else. What keeps it from becoming an illegal activity is someone getting permission from the owner of the surface they are about to create on.

I love my copyright law class and I have learned that one of the rules for cases governing copyright issues is that the Judge is not to make a judgment based on the quality of the art. I think this is so important. There have been people (mostly infringers) that have argued that a certain piece of art (or a book) should not get copyright protection because it is not of a high enough quality. The law has mostly stayed out of that realm protecting pornography and Picasso's to the same level.

Letting law make the decision about what art is opens a pandora's box that I think, as artist, we should be terrified of. It really sucks that de la Vega may be a casualty of that.

"Only the children know what they are looking for, " said the little prince. "They waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry...."

"They are lucky," the switchman said. St. Exuperty in the Little Prince Chapter 22 (You really should read this book.)

My Crazy Life

If I seem a bit pensive lately it is because finals are coming up. I don't really think the Acentos crew has seen me in full out finals mode (last term I just let myself disappear). But here is the thick of it--in law school you only get one test per term and that one test is 90% of your grade for the class. I also have two papers to write but the profs for those classes have said that they would give us leniency with the deadlines. I really should come up with a battle plan for those.

In poetry land, I have to polish some poems for my Acentos feature which I am more excited than nervous about. It will be a nice way to leave Acentos for two months (I may be able to go to the May 11th one but I am not too sure).

Work is work, I got a couple of cases to close out before I go to the DC internship. Work and work related topics have been leaking into all areas of my life. I have to figure out how I am gonna deal with that because the knot between my shoulders is getting so big it is bigger than the knot that I always have in my hair.

Last I have to get ready to get myself to DC. I squared away the housing situation. It is costing me too much for three weeks but I took the very amazingly located studio apartment for one reason mainly. I want folk to visit me. You can take the chinese bus to and from DC for like 20 bucks roundtrip. I doubt I can entertain you but you will have a place to sleep. I don't know how I am getting me and five weeks worth of stuff to DC (I need to get there by May 16th). Anyone wanna road trip??

My dining table is covered in legal cases, my coffee table is covered in four years worth of poetry, a copyright books and nail polish and my bedroom looks like my closet threw up all my shoes and clothes, the desk has a very neglected employment law textbook on it (the class has taught me nothing that I didn't already learn at work) and a random bag of organic apricots that really don't taste as good as they should.

I am gonna go stretch my back on the exercise ball (bubble baths are my normal stress fix but i have to leave in five minutes)...

click on Kerry's blog. read the post that talks about the news

Side note before the other post
Life has been so good lately, that yesterday when I was wearing the red socks with the pink hearts that my older brother gave me I checked my email to find a poem from my baby brother about how much he loves me.
Tell me that isn't beautiful.

Really, I perform so I can get hit on

Lately I have had this internal debate about whether I want to keep performance poems as my focus or switch to writing. For me they are two different creative processes and I have a ton of poems I don't perform. I realize though, that if I stopped performing I will be cutting off an amazing avenue of pick up lines that provide amusing fodder for me and my friends.

My favorite line is, so, "why did you write that poem about me.?" It is kinda amusing when platonic guy friends say that, but I have heard that line from people who I have never met before. I think one day I am just gonna snap and in an amazingly erotic turning into completely manic voice say. No, I didn't write it about you, but I am performing it for you, cause I saw you in the audience and just picture this life with lots of babies cause i really don't wanna practice law and you seem like that type of guy who will just let me sit on my ass and take care of me while i just write poems about us and i don't think you would care if i gained a ton of weight cause my chuletas fritas are as good as my poems and all i wanna do is cook them for you so please please take me home. Hopefully the guy will run off before i even get to the chuleta part.

Last night I performed a Poem about Slavery called "The Santero's Granddaughter Receives a Vision in the Florida Panhandle." The piece really is about a vision I received and it took a bit out of me to do the poem. So, to get off stage and have some drunk guy stumble up to me was just not what I wanted to happen. There is a certain type of drunk that frightens me and I was already started to back away from this guy (Thank God he was small), but he stumbles up to me and starts telling me about how, "I really relate to you piece. Like really relate to it, cause I am Latin, but Central American but my cousins are Latin and you were the first girl up there and you are a Latina." He kept saying he related to the piece over and over. And I am wondering (but not saying), what exactly did you relate to in the piece. Do you receive visions? Have you been unwillingly whipped or raped? I mean really?... explain...But instead I handed him an Acentos flyer which distracted him enough for me to escape.

Saturday at Respect the Mic somebody whistled at me before I got on the stage and it was that annoying I like what I see whistle that I really thought people only did when they were joking, so I looked up to see if it was one of my friends but it wasn't....threw me off for a second and made it hard to get myself back into the proper place I needed to be for my poem. Just craziness.

All I can say, is if you are gonna hit on someone and use their poem as an avenue towards success at least pay attention to the poem and latch on to some part of it to make appropriate conversation BUT (and i got this story from one of my friends) if the piece is about how she is a lesbian and she is really in love with her partner...just let it go

The Little Prince

Last night I had a discussion with a friend about the Little Prince by Antoine de St. Expury. This book is Biblical to me. The story is beautiful and innocent and is filled with so much insight I sometimes feel completely unworthy of it.

A terrible summary of the book is that a man is flying his plane through the desert when it crashes, he sets about fixing his plane and one night in the middle of the Sahara a Little Prince pops up. Slowly it comes out that the Prince is not from this planet. He encountered many planets between home and the earth each teach him and us something about the nature of grown ups. You have to read this.

I have one copy highlighted and I had a hard cover copy but I have no clue where it is which is breaking my heart.

Here is the interesting part. None of St. Exupery's books is anything like the Little Prince. Not at all. They are all very "grown up" type books. You will get why that is in quotes when you read the Little Prince.

This sometimes makes me believe that the events detailed in the Little Prince really happened. St. Exupery was a pilot. Maybe the story really happened to him, maybe he wrote it down and maybe he just had to let it go otherwise he couldn't get on with his "grown up" life. I know it is crazy but I really have no other explanation for a book that is so absolutely magical, so well written and so utterly heart wrenching.

Somebody on Amazon called it "Likely the most beautiful book ever written." I have to agree.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." St. Exupery

Baldo Creator Takes on Hungtington

I don't know if you all read Baldo but you should. Sometimes it is funny and sometimes not so much but mostly always relevant. Think Boondocks but a bit more light hearted and Latin. The past few stripes have been pocking fun at Huntington's ignorant ass racist article. Go read them, scan back a couple of days it is rather enjoyable.

I was gonna write a post about Wal Mart and Inglewood but Margaret Cho did it for me so go read her blog post titled Wal-Mart.

On a random note, I hate it when I am having a good night out and I tell the cabbie how to take me home and he just decides to go another way. First of all, nothing snaps you out of a buzz quicker than thinking your cabbie is kidnapping you. Then you have to ask them what the hell they are doing....then they try to brush it off like "Oh I forgot." I mean how do you forget I have only been in the cab for five minutes? Last nights cabbie did not get tipped. Just glad I got home in one piece.

Beautiful Weekend

So, Friday I trekked up to Orange County for a relaxing weekend. I am always a bit trepedacious when I go home, which leads to me getting a migraine which leads to me throwing up. Not a pleasant way to start the weekend but since it was the worse thing that happened....all I can say is WOOOHOO!

My younger siblings are at such a beautiful age (Dianna is 13 and David is 10). Everytime I go up they have something new going on, or they want to know something knew. David constantly peppers me with questions and seems to hate the fact that I hate law school. Mom needed time to herself so she went to Brooklyn to take care of some stuff and I stayed with the kids. Funny outtakes from the weekend.

In the mall with Dianna, David and two of my friends I-- spot I cute T-shit that says "Got Milkshake?" I instantly want it and my baby sister announces she wants it as well. I asked her, "Do you even know what milkshake means?" She turns red says no and ask me what it means. To which I had to say, "I don't completley know, but you don't have it and you're not allowed to have it either."

The kids are rather naive and I like them that way. They are being raised upstated and they go to Church and yes I know suburban kids get into all the trouble city kids get into (I was a suburban kid) but my brother and sister, at this age, know a lot less than there urban counterparts.

Like when my girlfriends and I were discussing a T-shirt that was a take on the tootise pop t-shirt. All this T-shirt says is "How many licks does it take?" My girls and I giggle and David, looking puzzled says, "Well it depends on how you lick it, if you lick it up or down or side to side...." At that point I just put my hand over his mouth and said " Just stop" Poor boy was so confused, had no clue how funny his statements were or why the girls and I were busting up!!

I took them to see Hellboy and Rich was right, it is unfuckingbelievable and a definite go see. I bought them some stuff, which is sure to me being broke at the end of the month but they both deserved what bought them. Took them to dinner. Yada Yada Yada.

All in all, it was a damn near perfect day. Made me feel very blessed and was exactly what I need. There was one thing missing though. So here it is-- I love you Ricky and really really wish you could have been there.