PR - 7.23

So I'm feeling a little better. I must have been feeling really irritable, sleepy and home sick. Calling Charlotte home is a big step, I don't think I've ever really MISSED Charlotte. Anywho... Puerto Rico. Today was filled with laughter and sight seeing. My aunt Maria pulled up in her rental at about 5:30am, and thats when I started my day. Made an awesome breakfast at about 9am, and edited pics all morning. When every one else finally woke up, we showered and went out to see some sights. We went to town and got some 'piraguas' and walked two beaches. One was pretty desolate and the other was packed. Being around my cousin, Mary Lou, has lightened my mood a bit; finally having some kind of sense of home next me has made me feel better. When we got home my Aunt Maritza pulled up with her three girls: Leysha, Daysa, and Dayleen; we had a lot of fun while every one else was cooking. My uncle Carlos' daughter, Karina, played with us aswell. I ended up plucking yellow flowers and putting it behind all of their ears. After I did it for the youngest, Dayleen, everyone else wanted one... haha. Aunt Maritza's SUV was down and out, and *every one* seemed to be wanting to fix it. The problem was a torn radiator hose. When the repairs and food were done, my aunt ended up pulling out a cake and singing happy birthday to her husband, Luis, and that was desert for the night. Every one seemed to be happy,and it was beautiful. When it got really dark I noticed the stars were out, so I went out on the roof to star gaze with Mary Lou, aunt Maria's daughter, my cousin. We just enjoyed the nice breeze and some music from her iPod. I noticed how we both have similar tastes in music even after having being apart for such a long time, after I moved to North Carolina. There are pictures here from when we visited P.R as young kids. Its amazing how much has changed and how little *we* have. Tomorrow hopes to be another beautiful family day, we're supposed to be making 'empanadas' at Aunt Maritza's house.

PR - 7.22

My cousin arrived less than 20 minutes ago. Her flight details... sucked, worse than mine. I got a full night's worth of sleep waiting for her to get here. I was planning to wake up and make them breakfast, but they had eaten Burger King on the way here and I didn't wake up in time. I'm hungry. My day before going to bed yesterday was very short. I didn't shoot any pictures. I'm beginning to get dissatisfied with my trip. I'm spending too much time at the stores here and I'm not spending too much time out of the house. We went to Sam's Club in Ponce, which is about an hour away, at around 4:30pm. We got back at 10:00pm. My phone finally worked there. Once I got signal, it became more useful. People I had not talked to since I left were texting me the whole afternoon. I enjoyed that. Work is waiting for me when I get back to Charlotte, that felt good. The only room with A/C is not my room any more. Its going to be hot nights for the rest of my trip. I played with my younger cousins [Aunt Maritza's three kids] today. I felt a closer bond with them when they pulled off at about 10:30pm. I went to bed after that. I want to believe I'm enjoying myself. I miss my puppy. I know it will get better now that my cousin is here. I realized I can buy alcohol, since the drinking age here is 18. Interesting. Where is the youth here? I wonder where the cool kids hang out... hmmm?

PR - 7.21

My grand-dad recently had most of his front teeth pulled out by some obscure dentist and today his brother [my great uncle] came to visit him. My grandfather didn't know he was a dentist in Chicago, and my great Uncle didn't know his teeth were missing. He went home, gathered some supplies, and came right back with a whole bunch of different materials and tools to make dentures. The process took about an hour, and at the time I was editing a picture of my grandfather's mother, Uncle dentist's step mother and my great grandmother. I'm hoping I can find a good print shop and a craft store so I can buy some stuff to frame it.
My mother decided she'd cook out today and called my Aunt Maritza to make some rice and come over and eat. She grilled some chicken in my Grandfather's grill with charcoal, a taste I can only remember from my early years, back when I was about 6; when gas grills became huge. She made potato salad, and boiled some plantains. We ate really well!
I went with my grand dad to meet up with Aunt Maritza's husband, Tito, at my Great Unlcle Dentist's house to talk about a construction job. He wants to extend the rear end of his house by 20 feet. They measured up the dimensions and worked out numbers while I shot some pictures. My grand dad looks good in his glasses. Tito has been out of work for a few weeks and this is a good thing coming to him and his brother. The economy here in Puerto Rico is crap and its rough times for a lot of labor workers.
When we got back I finally opened up my laptop and started typing out these journals, which I had handwritten because of my charger being broken. My Uncle Carlos came into the house, stopped me and asked me to come with him to drop off some of the fish they caught to a friend from work and to drop off the rear differencial from a 50s Ford Bronco to some mechanic. Of course I agreed. When we got to the mechanic's shop, my attention was immediately caught by a Mazda Protege that was lowered and was labeled Mazdaspeed/turbo. You guys know how I love cars. I wandered off when I noticed that right outside of the shop, there was a beautiful view of Yauco and the surrounding mountains at dusk. I took my camera out and shot a nice picture of the view. When I went back into the shop the owner of the shop noticed my interest in the Protege and told me he had something else covered up that he thought I would like. He pulled back the cover to show me an old yellow Datsun restored and drag ready. It was a beautiful sight, until he did the unthinkable; he opened up the hood: SR20DET, custom EVERYTHING; hybrid Garrett turbo, shop designed fuel injectors, etc. adding up to 500hp; it became beast. I ended up having a long conversation with the mechanic about my old Celica and politics, we exchanged knowledge on issues in Puerto Rico and the United States. Pretty good bonding experience with my Uncle as well. We drove back and I conclude my day by writing this journal.

PR - 7.20

Water park? What a JOKE! The line was as long as 2 football fields and the sun was set on Hell! We ended up leaving my aunt's sister in law, after standing in line for an hour and a half, and going to see some sights around the area instead. We went to a view point where you could see the beach, but I didn't bring my camera since we were going to the water park. I ended up missing lots of great shots today. We went to a flea market [more shopping?] and I bought a pair of much needed sun glasses. After that we went to Burger King and back to Aunt Maritza's house.
She has a hammock that my mom had given to her as a gift many years ago, so I put it up and laid in it behind a beautiful view. I realized after an hour or two that I had fallen asleep, so I got up and went into her house and watched Spiderwick. My aunt Maritza's kids were out and about playing all around the house until some man selling strange fruit, called quenepas, came by and they all came to a stand still and focused on the fruit. What a beautiful picture.
We got all of our stuff together and went back to my Grandparent's house. I took my laptop out again to see what the problem was and I diagnosed that there was a broken connection within my charger cable. I dissected the cable and made the best attempt at fixing the problem I could. After a copper cable and electrical tape, I had access to my laptop. Having my laptop meant a few things. I could:
-work on my new poem
-write my journals for each day for my blog
-shoot pics and edit at the end of the day
-upload pics from my camera to my laptop and have the freedom to shoot as many pictures as I want on this trip
-get on the internet when ever I get to a house that has it
-have something to do during down time
There are all good things! I watched TV for a little while and then went to bed after that. Being in the sun is draining.

PR - 7.19

After eating breakfast, which for me, consisted of yesterday's left overs from my mountain top pork spot, we went shopping. Thats what makes my mother happy, shopping. We went to K-Mart and a few other small shops, nothing really special. I'm not dissatisfied with a long day of random shopping, although I am getting bored, really fast. My mom asked me if I wanted to go with my aunt Maritza's sister in law to a water park tomorrow, and I agreed to it only because I knew I wouldn't do anything on Sunday else if I denied the offer. My grandfather and Uncle Carlos went fishing in the afternoon. I tried to tag along, but the boat was small and they felt that I wouldn't enjoy myself and I would get sea sick. I didn't feel like pushing for it, but I was disappointed to be the only male to stay at my grandparent's house. I also feel like they think I'm not "outdoorsy" enough since I've grown up in the United States. I ended up eating some more home cooked food and went to bed at my Aunt Maritza's house. No A/C, yuck. Short day.

PR - 7.18

Hello blog world. I find myself writing to you all from Yauco, Puerto Rico. I will write an update every day for each day that I am here, telling you all about my days and how they are spent. My cousin and her family will be coming to join me very soon, I'm excited about that.

Today I woke up after an hour of sleep after doing the whole Thursday night Wine Up routine. Me and my mom went to the airport, and as usual, my travel plans were tainted in some kind of way. The airline overbooked the flight by 30 passangers, and were offering flyers a free round trip flight if we re-scheduled our flight to a later departure. Of course I saw passed the idiocracy going on and fought to keep our flight in order. We ended up leaving 30 minutes late and arriving on time.
The actual flight was all turbulance, from the moment we took off, to the moment we landed. I ended up sitting next to an older tourist couple, who were very awkward and sleepy, and had a short conversation with them before we all fell into a deep sleep. They said I reminded them of their nephew, who is in film school some where in Pennsylvania. The pilot got on the intercom and told us we were going to land. I had doubts in his flying experience so I was wide awake for the landing. I got off of the plane safely.
It was 1:30pm. The air was hot and thick with humidity. My aunt, Maritza; one of her daughters, Dayleen; and her husband, Tito; picked us up to drive 3 hours from the airport in San Juan to my Grandparents house in Yauco. I slept through the most of the drive. I was thrilled to find out we had stopped for food, for I had not eaten since Wine Up, the night before. We sat down at this roasted pork spot hidden at the top of a mountain. The food was to die for and engraved in my mind for ever. When we got to my grandparent's house... My laptop's charger was broken and I had nothing else to do, so I went straight to sleep.

Colors

Its been months since I give myself the time to write on my blog, its something I am really guilty about. For those of you disappointed, I'm sorry. For those of you who are not, you should be. Here's something new I'm working on... remember- work in progress, ya'll get the exclusive. :)

Being is a hard thing to live with when you're a leaf.
Lost. lonely. broken. scared. abused. blind.

This is to:
The young girls who want to love little boys hard because daddy wasn't there.
The ones looking for fathers in step fathers who can only see their mother's ex lovers in them.
The beautiful who won't look in the mirror because they only see the ugly.
The ugliest win over sins is finally being comfortable in your skin,
and DAMN IT you're still feeling at a loss...

Resurrect green chlorophyl with passion.
You need to remember the last time love felt real
and hold onto it for ever.

when you're feeling like a happy red
when tomorrow hopes to be a sunny day
and today its been nothing but rain, sweat and tears
cooling you down
face angry and wet coloring you a shiny crimson
because your mood is based on today's negativity

when ever you're feeling blue
when the sky is falling and your-
-eye to eye, face to face, ear to ear with the troposphere
and you can't breathe because the air is thinner now

When lungs and veins dry up.

when bruises on heart have you feeling purple.
When tornado gusts and hurricane blows are holding you back from reaching your potential.

when you feel like your next breath
is going to take more energy out of you than you can pull in,

When life doesn't show you the next set of options
and rock bottom at fifteen makes you believe letting go from the branch to a
yellow suicide is the only way out of this fucked up world,

Hold on, I got you.

I might not be the greatest example.

but I can promise to be there
When love leaves and leaves scars,
and teach you how to fall like leaves when the wind blows in Autumn.

Fall skillfully, beautifully;
fall and Don't make a sound.
Fall and Don't let your demise be earth quaking
fall and Baby don't let the world see you with your knees to the ground.

change colors and fall, like it was meant to be.

I'll rake up the pieces of your heart and put them in a nice pile for you.
I'll be the helping hand.
I'll be your life's savior.

Suck the positive energy out of me, pull in.
Hold on to me for as long as it takes for you to
get back up on your feet and balanced;

and this time, know to be ready for the next blow.

Life, is not a fairy tale.
Happy endings are only temporary.

Magic only exists when you come to terms with reality
and fall in love with the reflection in the mirror
and realize its not easy being human.

We've all got problems.
Stability is only a hopeless dream if you're hopeless.
So dream.

Dream to push the sky out of reach.
Dream to be successful.
Dream to be that bright star in the sky.
Dream to keep your balance in order.

Because its not the fall that will kill you.
its staying down and not wanting ever getting back up.

Hold on to love.
Hold on to for ever.

Let go of yesterday and promise to carry tomorrow out more carefully.
Be prepared for what the next season may bring to you, or take from you.

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