Driving Ms. Jaime

I thought I'd be at least fifty years old before I found myself nervously waiting for my baby to finish his driver's test.

But there I was, sitting next to a middle-aged man and his tiny granddaughter while my thirty-year-old husband, who's been driving since the age of 18, circled downtown with a smokin' examiner.

He was waiting for his wife, so we felt each other. The conversation eventually turned to the detention center across the street. "Man, that's a bad, bad place," he said. My white privilege answered, "Yeah, I wouldn't want to work there!" I'm no fool, I watch OTNB. "Well, I wouldn't want to be there again." Dammit. I'm a fool.

Jaime pulled up right as a bunch of former guests were being released out onto the sidewalk. I guess one could describe the atmosphere as euphoric. Jaime's hot cop assumed that he was afraid of them, but he explained to her that he was just startled by the excitement. I think it was because his nerves were totally shot.

For months, we'd been talking about his license, and for weeks, he'd been driving me crazy about it.
"How exactly would you describe this sign?"
Stop.
"Mmm-hmm. And what exactly are they going to ask me at all times?" 
I don't remember. I was 15.
"Unacceptable."

I'd been doing most of the driving for months. He has a Spanish liscense, as well as an international driving permit, but the United States is better than every country combined, so we were worried about him being pulled over with foreign documents.

I was so proud of my giant baby when he happily bounded out of our giant Buick, though I really shouldn't have been because of course the man can drive a damn car. I was also excited that he was going to stop peppering me with questions he already knew the answers to, but I was mostly excited that he'd be driving a lot more.

False.

Now it's, "Oh god! We're in his blind spot! Pass! Pass!" or "This guy is not giving me the proper three seconds! He's eating my ass right up!"

My husband might be a neurotic driver, but he's also a great one. Therefore, I'm happy to splay out in the passenger seat when he lets me because we still argue over who has to drive much to my chagrin.

I am a passenger.  (link)

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

In Barcelona, I had been accidentally sleeping with someone for weeks when he mistakenly came over one night.

"That was fast," I said. "I came on a bike."
"I didn't know you had a bike." "It is my wife's."
"Mmhmm...Come again?"

That was my first real run in with what we call a green card marriage, and I had a lot more after that.

Of course, I would have married a girl friend because they have a lot more staying power, though at that time, it would only have been valid in Spain. I never really considered it, but it appealed to me way more than getting real married. Might as well get something out of it, right?

Fast forward to asking my boyfriend of three months to marry me.

Like Charles Manson, I had to marry the person I wanted to stay close to, but unlike Charles Manson, I had to prove the legitimacy of my relationship.

And please let me assure you all that our relationship is Le.Git.I.Mate. We do things in front of each other of which I should be very ashamed, though I am not...especially Jaime.

So, it would have been devastating if after we had submitted clean background checks, proven we could financially support ourselves and completed months of expensive paperwork, one person behind a desk decided that we were faking our quite frankly excessive love for each other.

Jaime and I cope with stressful situations in very different ways. He frets for days beforehand like he's a really tall Jewish mother while I tend to remain creepily calm until the car ride there. They're both great coping mechanisms.

Therefore, preparing for our immigration interview was extremely enjoyable. Mi marido spent hours combing through our old messages and photos. Turns out, I cuss a lot. It took me ages to copy all the documents we thought we needed, and copying is my favorite activity! However, when it came to going over the questions the inquisitioner might ask, I just couldn't bring myself to practice very hard. How could I not know nearly everything about the person I'd been popping the pimples of, pooping near and sleeping against for more than a year? I knew we had this.

On the morning of the most important day of our marriage thus far, we reviewed each others' tattoos then completely covered our tattoos with eerily matching oufits. We decided not to change because we had this.

Then I silently freaked out during the drive because that's how I handle my shit. A week before, Jaime had discovered that a question they sometimes ask is, "Which side of the bed does your partner sleep on?"

I immediately imagined our bed as if one was looking at if from our doorway while he answered as if the immigration official was lying in bed between us. I say that he sleeps on the left, and he says that I sleep on the left. We both can't sleep on the left! We didn't have this!

I don't get nervous often, but I'll admit that I was a little antsy while raising my right hand and repeating an oath after a woman even though she did have a nose ring. Don't fuck this up, Jaime is what I silently transmitted to him, but what I was really worried about was fucking it up myself.

She asked some pretty basic questions about our birth dates, parents' names, phone numbers and address. I believe we got them all right before she turned to Jaime and asked only him quite a long list of questions including:

Have you ever raped anyone?
Are you a communist?
Do you smoke? 
Do you plan to lead an armed rebellion against the United States?
Are you a drug trafficker?
Do you plan to practice polygamy? 
Do you love your wife?

                     I'm kidding. She never asked if he loved me. 

I felt bad for him, but it was also nice to know that information about my husband. I mean, I have never once asked him if he's raped anyone, and now I know for sure he hasn't because he raised his hand and promised. 

What she didn't ask was what side of the bed we sleep on or does your partner have any unusual birthmarks or tattoos? I was disappointed.

Furthermore, she took very few of the copies documenting the legitimacy of our relationship. She didn't even want to see the Shutterfly book of the wedding pictures we made for 50% off! It was like she believed us from the moment we walked through the door.

She told us it would be two to five weeks before we received her decision, but we got the letter in the mail less than a week later. 

I want to think that she could immediately pick up on our lovers' chemistry. That we just oozed compatibility and we were clearly made for one another.

But what she really picked up on is probably a couple of first time married white people, European passport, English fluency and advanced degrees. I doubt she cared that we love each other, and why should she? Is marriage really about love or legal rights? I suppose it's no one's business.

Maybe we should ask our partners if they rape people? 

Just saying.

I Will Never Be Invited to Another Wedding Ever Again

My sister called and asked me to be her matron of honor.

She meant for it to sting, and it did.

As female baby children, we were taught that only two things were to be certain in our lives: we would bleed from our NO! places one day, and according to my school nurse, everyone around us would be able to smell it, and we would get married.

We could be whatever we wanted to be, were just as good as men and should never be afraid to march to the beat of our own tambourines cause that's what girls play, but god dammit, we would be wives.

Four years after me, my maid of honor was born to my great relief. That was one thing I wouldn't have to stress out about after someone would completely surprise me by asking me to marry him because we never would have discussed it like rational people beforehand, and I would have to decide in 2-3 seconds whether to say "yes" or "of course I will". 

It was especially helpful at sleepovers when we would sit in a circle and explain who would be in our wedding party when we married our fourth grade boyfriends whom we had never actually spoken to. 

"I'd choose all seven of you to be my maids of honors or however you say it," most of my friends would say except for the brave bitches who would actually be honest and choose one person in the room because she was her best friend, and the rest of us could be bridesmaids. We'd all make a mental note to make her be guest book attendant.

I don't know if I'll ever know if my friends felt as uncomfortable during this conversation as I did.

What about our sisters and our cousins and all the friends we will make at college and work!? I like my brother, too! Didn't they know that our lives would and should change a lot between the ages of 11 and 25, the oldest age you can be to get married? What if we're all gay? This is a softball sleepover.

I had an out because I always said my sister would be mine. They couldn't judge me for that, and besides, I swore to them that they would be my bridesmaids even though I knew it was a lie, and breaking promises never scared me.

I really resent it when people say that all girls dream of their wedding day because I really don't think that's true. Certainly some do, but I'm prepared to say that a lot of them don't give a shit. Both are okay.

As I got older, I started to pay attention to weddings. I liked to dance and eat cake. Those were solids, but other things bothered me...like the whole fucking rest. Here's a small sample:

1. showers- why are only women supposed to care about weddings? Why aren't men invited? Why are we obligated to buy them gifts for a personal choice they're making that has nothing to do with me, Carrie? 

2. bachelor/bachelorette parties- give me a break and last night of freedom my easily offended ass. Am I the only person who's not okay with my partner paying (or exploiting) other women to see their tits and get a blow job? I mean, we can't afford that! Plus, get off the sidewalk you stilettoed, drunken vomit fountains. I live here.

3. Today, the bride wears white to symbolize virginity. I have never met a virgin bride in my life, and I hope I never do because that is ridiculous and unattainable unless you are a child bride or were raised in a cult that miraculously didn't exploit women (both bad).

4. A father walks his completely dependant daughter down the aisle to GIVE HER to the groom who assumes the burden.

5. To be presented as "man and wife" and Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Jerkoff is offensive. You can argue with me until we defriend each other, but this always has been and always will be completely sad and wrong.

6. Spending more money on your wedding doesn't make your marriage any better...or worse than anyone else's, and people who make weddings into competitions suck a lot.

Hey, I'm really sorry for just trashing your wedding, but I'm guilty of some of these abominations, too.

I really don't care what people do at their own wedding so long as it makes them happy, and it's not #5 from above, and they have traditional white wedding cake with loads of buttercream frosting that will make our poop turn a fun color that for a split second makes us think we're dying.

All I ask is that you think about the meanings behind these traditions we have as mostly privileged, mostly white, mostly Christian raised Westerners and change the meanings...then feel free to partake in some or all of them but with your new secret, independent motives that would just shock the hell out of your guests if they only knew.

Because I am so damn excited to stand next to my remarkable sister on a day that will make her unbelievably happy in a dress that looks pretty bad on me after I've done every single thing she asks me to and not to do. I will be terrible at it, but it is my birthright, and I'll be damned if anyone thinks they can take that away from me.

Right after anyone tells me that they are doing something 

ridiculous because "it's traditional."

The Definitive Interview with J.P.P.

I sat down with Jaime and asked him ten questions I already knew the answers to. Here's what he said: 

Do you speak English? 

I do. Do I have to be funny? 

What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you besides moving to the United States? 

That's not the worst thing. 

What's the best work out music?

Ummm...This is Gaythe album including groups such as: Bonnie Tyler, Village People, Diana Ross and others. Sorry! Actually Cher. Cher has to be included in that. The only one I always skip is Britney Spears.

Do you like it when I use superlatives?

No. I think it's fake, and it doesn't convey what you want it to convey. It made me feel very good once, but then I realized lots of people are the same, and I was like, "That's bullshit." I don't have one best friend or anything like that. You can't say, "You're the best." You can say, "You're among the best." In any case, fuck off you're not the best. 

Is our apartment the correct size?

Yeah, it's the right size. I like it this small. It's easier to clean. It looks very tidy all the time. The only thing I would like to have is a bigger garden.   
But we don't even have a garden. 

Yeah, exactly. A bigger flower pot that you didn't let me buy. 


Do you like gluing rhinestones to horse heads? 
No. I like the outcome. I don't like the process. It's very tiring and boring, and I prefer you to do it. You have more patience. You have more patience towards it. Not in general. You have more patience with rhinestones. What are you typing? 

Are dogs better than people?

Yeah, absolutely. People are violent. Dogs can only be aggressive. Dogs do not hurt just for the sake of hurting, and they're usually lovely. And most of all, people are powerful and dogs are not. And dogs are softer...usually. Except for your ears. 

Who is a better cook: you or me?

Comparisons are hateful. I think we're both good in our own way, but if we had to cook something special, we would both be bad.  

Who is a better driver?

The same. 

Oh! You're forcing the answer. Okay. I'll tell you what I think. I think compared to me, you drive faster and your braking is more sudden which scares me basically because I had a very bad accident not so long ago. Sometimes you don't scare me. Doesn't mean you drive worse than me. You drive differently, and that difference scares me. (I'd like to add here that the most stereotypical looking grandma woman passed him on the highway the other day.)

What do you prefer to be doing right now? 

I'm good here. Being naked at home and doing fuck all. 

That's all I have for you today.

And you think that's enough for a blog post? You better add something. I'm going to tell you a secret. You could've recorded this with your phone or your computer. Wouldn’t have to be typing all the time and could focus on what I say. Will you correct the mistakes I made? 

You didn't make any mistakes.
Sometimes I do. 

Only you have the power to turn shitty things into stories.

When I Say INTRAUTERINE! You say DEVICE! INTRAUTERINE!...

This year, I'm celebrating Mother's Day, my own mother and our Mother Earth by getting an IUD.

Thanks Obama!!!

But in all seriousness,

Most people would applaud a 12 year old for getting one, but some people don't think it's very cool that a childless, 29 year old, married woman with a strong support system is considering putting it in her "About" information.

Children aren't a good idea for me at the moment. I don't need to explain, but I will.

Everyone's all like, "You and Jaime would have the cutest, olive-skinned, red-headed bilingual babies! And you'd be like the best parents ever!"

False. Jaime's family is super white.

Also, I'm not convinced that we would make good parents mostly because Jaime hates children, and we're completely self-involved. Sometimes we forget that we have a spouse. I don't want us to forget that we're parents, too. 

But enough about how horrible we are...

There are other legitimate reasons to choose not to be a parent indefinitely or for awhile.

Do you know how many stupid people we have on this planet (correctly assuming that every person is stupid)?

7,316,069,472

I don't like that. It's gross. And in the words of Paul Giamotti as God on Inside Amy Schumer, "I really need to stop making so many white girls."

Not to mention the financial aspect. We can barely afford the five vacations we need to take every year. Jaime was born the size of Danny Devito. We wouldn't be able to lie about our kid's age like my parents did at Shoney's and movie theaters.

He also keeps checking out books with titles like, Self-Sufficiency on a Shoestring! and How to Tell Your Wife that Everything She Does is Bad for the Planet. We recently slept on the floor of an RV during a tornado watch, and he thought it was the bee's pollen press, which leads to insane comments such as, "Hey! Can you believe that they'll give you land in Kansas and Minnestoa for free!?"

I can.

All this just makes it clear to me that we don't know what we'll be doing or where we'll be doing it in six months much less five years. I will die if I have to care for a human child inside a railroad car in the middle of Kansas. I really will.

So, I will apologize to my mother, the best mother, who wasted a perfectly good egg on me. May she be a grandmother, the best grandmother, and may my younger siblings be responsible for that because I cannot wait to be an aunt. 

In the meantime, I'm still trying to figure out how to raise myself and an adult Spaniard.

  Auntie Em and Tio Jaime long after he has stopped 

plucking my beard. We should be so lucky.

Living With a Conscience

I've been living with a conscience for about a year now.

Its name is Jaime, and it sucks.

I prefer to choose a few of my own causes and make believe that other travesties and human rights violations don't exist so that I have time to get on Facebook and Buzzfeed and read disreputable "news" stories.

It's kind of like saying, "I'm okay with pillaging so long as you promise no raping." Or, "I mean, in this case, I think the guy deserved to be feathered but certainly not tarred. Or, "How dare you loiter while I'm trespassing!?"

Next to me, Jaime is taking notes from Democracy Now and imploring me to watch a documentary with him about the United States' involvement with The Killing Fields in Cambodia at 11 o'clock at night.

Jaime's against bad things, so he doesn't support bad things. I'm against bad things, too, but sometimes I need stuff or YOLO. 

I was telling my coworkers that Jaime is really upset that all the produce at Costco is from Mexico, so he doesn't want us to buy it even though we spent $50 on a membership. Another teacher who studied abroad in Alicante for a semester chimed in that yeah, Spaniards really hate Mexicans.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

I had to explain to her that my husband isn't a racist, but he is concerned about exploited laborers in Mexico meaning, I guess, that he loves Mexicans.

I just love guacamole made with avocados bought cheaper in bulk.

I never went shopping in Barcelona, and if I did, I went to second hand markets. Therefore, the most appropriate work clothes I had were hot pants, skirts missing one or more buttons and torn jeans. Mom and I ran to J.C. Penney during a super sale the week before my first day, and I got an entire work wardrobe for under $50. The manic high I got from "robbing" J.C. Penney quickly wore off in the car, as I thought about Jaime's disappointment and the lives of the men, women and children who made the clothing for far less than I paid for my super deals. I look really good, but I feel really bad.

We just bought Jaime some shirts and shoes at a thrift store, and he was just giddy about them the whole way home. See what a guilt-free conscience can do? He looks sorta good but feels awesome.

But I think the thing that hurts the most is when he disses my girl, Obama. He isn't some ignorant, racist redneck who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. He has lots of clues about what he's talking about, and it's because he doesn't refuse to read foreign printed articles criticizing the behavior and *gasp* politics of the man who has the worst job on Earth...like I do. 

Living with someone who has such a strong moral compass really does make me want to be a better person no matter how much I complain about it.

It also helps me to ignore him when he says nonsensical things like, "Comparisons are hateful," and "Spain has much higher safety standards than the U.S.," and "Society is very accepting of fat women, but is really tough on overweight men."

Because we could all stand to be a little more Jaime and a little less Walmart, Gap, Apple and Monsanto.

Fuck these guys and not in the good way.

Here's some light reading:

http://www.laborrights.org/in-the-news/14-worst-corporate-evildoers

http://www.globalexchange.org/corporateHRviolators

Higher Ground (Teachers Keep On Teachin')

I love my job because each day scholars in the school of life trust me, their sensei, to connect with them on a spiritual and mental level at a small point on their endless journey to enlightenment.

I'm just kidding.

I love the sound of my own voice. That's why I'm a teacher.

My new job is like my old job in that I teach English. However, my new students are like my old students in no way at all.

My old students kept entire hoofed legs on their kitchen counters, drank beer all day and wiped their butts with toilet paper.

My new students don't eat pork or drink alcohol, but they do wipe their butts with their hands.

I love this. I think it's great. My preferred spice of life is interacting with different people from different cultures all the live long day. Why? I have no idea.

What I do know is that 24 people depend on my help to get to Level 3 of a 7 level program. I also know that 23 of those people are from Saudi Arabia, and 2 of those people are women. We'll get to the 1 person who's unaccounted for.

I want to start by saying that I adore my students before I shred them. I value them for who they are and where they come from. They teach me an awful lot more than I teach them.

And here we go...

What in the fuck is going on in Saudi Arabia right now? I tried to prepare myself, but egads, guys. E...gads.

I'm not arrogant enough to think that I can compete with twenty-five years of being told it's this way when I think it's that way, but I am arrogant enough to think that I can prepare these adults for a bachelor's or master's program in the United States despite the fact that they're not giving much to work with.

For starters, I've warned them not to cover their male friends or new acquaintances with kisses...especially on the nose. They just wouldn't believe me despite my threats of public humiliation or much worse. We role played, I professed my love for the kiss in spite of my culture, we hypotheticaled ourselves silly until I said, "It would be like if I had a problem with my right hand, so I went to shake your left hand instead of your right" (ensuing pandemonium).

And no, I cannot just change your grade. I know that I can, like, open the gradebook and erase a grade, and like, put a better grade there, but like really I can't. This is considered a serious question.

The phone goes in your bag or in my hand. It does not go in your pocket. No, it doesn't go in your other pocket, and it sure as hell doesn't go in your face when I'm lecturing. It goes in your asshole. 

Dating. I don't want to talk to you about it either, but this chapter is on dating because the ESL gods hate me. Yes, I have ex-boyfriends. Yes, that's okay in my culture. I'm serious! No, you don't have to marry the first person you go on a date with freaking thankfully. You can date more than one person at a time if you want to. I know dating is forbidden. You don't have to do it, but I did notice that you cut all the pictures of women out of our book. Gross. 

I hate that I have to sit across from a grown man for forty minutes with unbroken eye contact because he can't not cheat or write on the tables.

I also hate that I have to say everything ten times (this is not an exaggeration), and they still do the exact opposite of what I say. 

But what I hate the most is that during an I agree/disagree exercise, they all looked straight at my face and told me that yes of course men are smarter than women. The only person who disagreed was the one person who is a woman and VIETNAMESE in the class. She also has by far the best grade, though her vagina makes her the dumbest person in the room (except for me cause she's Asian).

My job is really hard, and that's okay because I need a hard job to keep my mind from imploding.

But my job is really easy when I forget my lunch and multiple students bring me theirs. It's also really easy when I bring the most unpopular guy in class a week old cookie from the teachers' workroom for his birthday and catch him taking a picture of it on his phone. It's easy when they remember my own birthday and sing to me. And it's really, really easy when we make each other laugh, as we do every day.

So, I'll teach a woman in a burqa even though I really want to see her face, and I'll teach a man who thinks I'm inferior to him. I'll even do it in a green snake skin skirt wearing heels and a v-neck blouse while constantly tucking my uncovered hair behind my ears. Because if they can come sit and listen to a godless slut all day, this godless slut can at least listen to them.

Not so much here...

or here...

but riiiiiiight here.