NINA FARINA

This Morning

so i am on the train and i am looking at this girl wearing this spiky heels, obviously to work and as I am thinking "why the hell would she torture her feet five days a week", i bend over to get a new cd and i guess she saw my tat cause she turns to her companion and says, "why would she do that to herself?"

i restrained the laughing my ass off till i get off the train, but it was so fucking funny

Yo

Been hella busy so here's a quote to ponder

"Life is made of marble and mud." nathaniel hawthorne

Cards

Lately my life has been feeling like an amazingly beautiful and amazingly delicate house of cards and if one gets pulled out of place it'll all crumble. It is scary until I realize everyone's life is like.

Namastay

Gawd

re-read October 8th's blog post

I joke with people and tell them being single in New York City is punishment for stealing my 8th grade best friend's boyfriend. (Now I didn't really steal him, she told me she was gonna break up with him and he and I had always been friends and I broke up with the boy I was dating, anticipating that Nicole would break up with Rich. And he was sending me love letters, anticipating that she was gonna break up with him and then she didn't break up with him. So he had to break up with her and then he and I dated...on and off....for four years...and we are still great friends).

So the punishment isn't that bad but sometimes it gets freaking annoying and I am getting cynical. I know I am gonna just keep being honest and people can think what they want and that is that.

I really really can't wait to go away.

Congress

Lately I have been hearing a lot of very apathetic people talk about how the government doesn't listen to us so what we say doesn't matter. I am wondering who they are talking to. Have people completely forgotten about the House of Representatives?

I grew up with one of the most receptive Congressmen ever. When people in his district needed things, he actually got them done (he helped my best friends parent's with documentation problems for their Chinese Foster Child). Now I realize the Republican party screwed him when they redistricted HOWEVER that does not change the fact that you too can annoy the hell out of your Congressmen.

Yes Ladies and Gentlmen. You can write them everyday. Hell just send the same letter over and over again till you get your point across. You can go to their local office or you can call them. Congressmen are way more accesible than people think.

My point is, we have a system of checks and balances. If your Congressman isn't doing what you want, it is a lot easier to get them voted out of office than you think. If you Congressman is letting the president do things you don't want him to, contact your Congressman and chew him out for his voting record.

You are only as mute as you let them make you.

Randomness

1) Whoever said that after the first fifteen or twenty minutes of getting a tattoo you stop feeling the pain is a fucking liar and deserves to have there ass kicked. Five hours people, five hours. Left ass cheek didn't hurt, right one did, right lower back didn't hurt and the left lower back was excrutiating. It makes no sense. None at all. And I still have to go back for the second session.

2) The other day walking between the 2/3 and the L I saw this boy buy a painting from the artist I like. I ask boy how much picture was and he tells me. We proceed to chat but at some point I get nervous and shy and quiet. We get on train but don't sit near each other. I didn't notice that we got off at the same spot. But as I am turning to walk down 14th Street he tapes me and hands me the picture and quickly walks down 1st ave. By the time I realized what had just happened I looked at the back of the picture for a name or phone number. Nothing. I am wondering if he is kicking himself for not asking mine or something. I have to pretend that he is, cause I wish he did. Now I have this picture to make me feel tragically romantic.

3) I hate asthmatic poets...you know what I mean, the ones who take huge gulps of air after every line. I find it much worse than the poet who doesn't breath at all.

4) Someone needs to help me clean my apartment.

5) Why is it that all my squattors snore?

6) So ready to go on vacation.

besos

Are you insane?

This was the question Lynne posed to me last night when I walked into Bar 13 despite the fact that I have a 10-15 page paper due on Friday. I was very upset last night and I went to talk to Oscar, who for some reasons was in the D.J. booth. I meant to stay for a few minutes. Instead I cried out my stress and confusion on Eliel's shoulder. Got kissed and hugged by everyone and even in their annoyance people were so fucking sweet to me. You guys make me feel so loved. At some point in the night I realized that staying and hanging out would probably enable to get out my stress and write the paper even faster (I swore I would have a draft done today). I am proud to say that between 6 and 11 a.m. I banged out an 11 page paper. I think it is quality and I have three days to polish it. You guys are so good for me and I love you immensely.

Yes this is a scarification ritual

I've been hostessing at my friend's restaurant in order to get the money to buy my 25th birthday present for myself. And what would that present be, but finishing off the bottom portion of my tattoo. My mother hasn't been upset at my first two tattoos, she actually likes them. However, I have a feeling she isn't going to like this one because it is going to be big (on my back from my waist down to the top half of my hiney).

This past year, since my 24th birthday has been an utter trip that encompassed the worst day of my life (last Thanksgiving) and the best day of my life. I always knew I was going to add water and fish around the lotus, I thought I was going to put two fish but then I realized I had to put four. Of the things that have defined the person I have become is the fact that I am one of four siblings. And unlike other people I know, I adore each of my siblings (even when we fight). I understand why they are the way they are.

The other person who I miss every single day (and it kills me because she has been gone over six years) is my abuelita. She made me love the water and swimming and that is why I knew I had to have water and fish. One day I am going to have to get something done to honor my own mom and I have no clue what can symbolize how amazing she is to me.

So I told you when the worst day of my life was, here is the best day. At the end of August I went on vacation for the first time with all of my siblings (Rick is 28, Dianna is 14, David is 10). We went to Water Country USA and I just had so much fun running around with them, going on water slides, laying in the lazy river, eatting, being very very stupid. And that is why I am gonna get the fishies.

I have been warned that "nice boys" don't like girls with big tattoos. My mental reply, nice boys dont' like much of anything. I have older female friends (in their 40s) who have lived most of their lives doing what nice boys want and they are now either single or divorced. So screw the nice boys.

It is going to take two four hour sessions to get it done. I have a lot of faith in the artist who is doing the work (links to photos of other stuff he has done will come soon). When I came to him with the initial idea (two fish) he got hella excited and really just ran with it. When I brought him pictures of the type of fish that I wanted and told him I wanted four instead of two he got even more excited. Which is just really cool. The sketch of it is insanely cool, but very very few people will see the final product.

I just really need to immortalize this phase in my life. Sure one day my grandkids may ask me why I have a pod of killer whales on my ass. Then I will tell them, "when I was in my twenties I lived in Loisaida and hung out with the most amazing group of poets and I wanted to ensure that no matter what I would always remember that underneath the suit I am an artist, plus my ass was a lot higher then and looked much better and how dare you ask your abuelita a question like that you better get out of here before I hit you with my chancla."

Survey Question

Just heard a lyric line that has me thinking

"knowing nothing is better than knowing it all"

In context it seems to be a break up song (here is the link to the complete lyrics)
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/theused/onmyown.html

But this could be applied generaly to

So. Do you agree or disagree?

Games

I am discovering that not playing games, confuses people a whole lot more than playing games does. If you tell them the truth they either don't believe you or think you mean something else (even when you are explicit). If you do what they tell you to do they often get pissed and confused. And if you do what you say you are going to do, they generally get even more pissed and confused. People want to believe they can change your mind. Here is the warning, changing someone's mind is an incredibly difficult task when their mind doesn't want to be changed. Changing someone's heart is damn near impossible.

Justice?

The introductory note is this...I took criminal law as a requirement my 1L year. I do not plan on practicing criminal law and the closest I come to it is when I watch law and order. With that the blog post shall begin.

Some time ago a drunk white male harvard grad student was walking home when he was confronted by two Latinos in a car that began taunting him. In his drunkeness he snapped back at them, they got out of their car and allegedly started beatting him up. He pulled out a knife and stabbed on of them in the chest fatally. He is now on trial for the decedent's murder.

While he was being examined by the prosecutor he broke down, began crying, explaining that he didn't mean to kill him and that it was terrible. At one point he got off of the stand and began re-enacting what happened that night AND that is the point where my brain went "WHAT!".

Personally, I believe the murder was accidental. I don't think this kid has homicidal tendencies. I do think he is an idiot for carrying a knife. However, that is not the point.

Here is the point. Depending on what court you are in (state or federal) even the lawyers movements are restricted. In some courts the lawyer must stand behind the podium, in all courts he must ask permission to approach the bench AND a witness must be given permission to leave the stand. Now, I don't know if harvard kid got permission to leave the stand but I do know this. I have never heard of a single case where the DEFENDANT was allowed to leave the stand, while still giving testimony in order to re-enact the murder.

And while I think the murder should be ruled accidental, based on the facts I know, I think the administration of justice in this case is heavily skewed. Would this have been allowed if the defendant was not white, was not from Harvard and the decedent wasn't a latino from round the way? I don't need to answer that question.

I just want to know, if I am ever on the stand one day defending myself in a case like this--what will people see, will they see Wellesley College, Columbia Law, or Puerto Rican.

In a fair world I would argue for the application of the spirit of the law, rather than the lettter of the law but neither wind blows in the right way, not in this country, not right now. So I sit wringing my hands wondering when justice will be administered uniformly, wondering if I will ever be able to truly do anything about it. I am working in a system that even when they get the right answers, sometimes gets the right answers in the wrong way.

From the Random Shit that Annoys Me Files

The dudes from Orange County Choppers are NOT from Orange County, California. They are from Orange County, New York...like me. Just needed to clear up the record on that. Thank you very much.

Good Side/Normal Side (cause I refuse to call it bad)

Normal Side

To the Little Birdies in My Life,

Please don't think I don't know what you are up to. I am a pretty observant woman and I am making a career out of detecting bullshit. I didn't talk to my own father for a year and a half for disrespecting me. How high do you think you rank on my totem pole?

Besos

Good Side

I headed to the eye doctor today. I don't have eye insurance but I can't afford not to go. When I was 15 I burned my eye and this past February I got an ulcer in the same eye. So I make myself go annually. I went to the eye doctor today. This morning I was in the worst mood but my eye doctor such a wonderful person he just cheers me up (he is a sole proprietor). I had been telling him how dry my eyes have been and there is nothing that helps, sometimes it hurts they are so dry. Well he didn't believe what the other eye doctor had told me (the one I saw for the ulcer in february who was not my regular doctor). He told me there was a medicine that could help me, but it is $112 a month. I told him I couldn't afford it and would just deal with the dryness. And he told me that he would give it to me. My eye doctor is gonna give me free medicine till the problem clears up. I can't tell you how happy that made me. It just restores faith in some things.