Wedding Bells

October 20, 2016 by Vanessa Diaz

Three weeks ago on a Friday morning, the 24 hour countdown to my brother’s wedding day was on. Ale and I had enjoyed a “last supper” the night before, complete with a shot of tequila and a few DVR’d episodes of our favorite shows. We spent the evening, our last together as roommies, the way we’d spent countless other evenings in the two years we’d lived in his house together. It felt fitting to go out in classic Ale/V fashion.

Now on Friday, I’d set to packing up my stuff and cleaning up a bit before some last minute errand-running and wrapping up of details. Ale and I had just finished checking into the hotel where the bridal party and I would be staying that evening; we were driving back from Downtown San Diego with a few hours left until the rehearsal dinner when I asked if he’d remembered to get the good bug spray with the DEET in it. He’d be honeymooning in Punta Cana and ain’t nobody need no Zika in their life.

“Oooooh yeah,” he said, “I got one kind to spray our clothes, one kind to spray our bodies, and one kind that’s so DEET concentrated that you can only dab it on certain points on your body. I figure at this point, if a mosquito gets me, that’s determination and he deserves to get in.”

I chuckled. “He deserves to give you Zika?”

“Hey. I can’t help it if I get the Seal Team Six member of mosquitos. If you get through all of that DEET, sir: good for you, brotha.”

When I think back on my favorite moments with this kid, this interaction is the type I will recall. Driving around town, laughing at nonsensical shit. My brother often gives people a cool and stoic impression, not at all helped by his stubborn refusal to smile in photography (examples to follow). The truth is that while he’s definitely a study in obstinacy and has an undeniable temper, he’s actually quite warm and a giant goofball once you get to know him. He’s always thinking of ways to make the people he loves smile; he loves both to laugh and make others do so in turn. Thanks to the skill and prowess of a very capable wedding photographer, examples of this side of my brother dearest will also follow. You’ll have to pardon any typos in this post as a result – my eyes are still recovering from scouring close to 2,000 photos to find evidence of his smile.

Later that day with my car packed and ready to head over to the ceremony rehearsal, I took a good look around the house I was about to walk away from; I’d only be moving down the street with my parents (like the good Mexican that I am) and I knew I’d be back in this house for dinner, a Dodger game, to watch Power in no time. Still, I succumbed to those “this is the end of an era” emotions that so often surround these momentous occasions. This house was the scene of the surprise birthday party that Ale planned for me. It was where we waged vodka gummy bear wars, ate delicious meals, where we curled up on the couch with snacks to watch our favorite shows and then talk about our day. Though from only a few blocks away, I’d miss this kid. I wondered when exactly it was that we both became adults.

The wedding was a dream. The bride was stunning and radiant, my brother devastatingly handsome. For dinner we had tacos and not a soul in that venue was mad about it. There were a few surprises; that same brother who rarely smiles and does not dance busted out some choreography to Drake’s One Dance at the start of the reception and later to R. Kelly’s Bump & Grind during the garter toss. The crowd went wild at this supermoon-eclipse rarity. Later, just as the money dance was supposed to start, the DJ announced another special performance. As “I’m Sexy and I Know It” blared from the speakers, my brother’s groomsmen, his best friends and closest cousins, emerged from behind a curtain decked in a variety of superhero masks and proceeded to attack him. It was a mess of dry humping, body rolls and ridiculousness. The rest of the night was a blur of dancing and merriment. It could not have been more perfect.

I had the privilege of saying a few words at the wedding, ones I might not have been able to deliver had a double shot of tequila not been handed to me by my cousins when the nerves and emotions I’d kept at bay finally made an appearance hours before the wedding (#notallheroeswearcapes). The rest of this post is the English translation of that speech. It explains why earlier that morning, Ale received a text telling him to look in my bedroom, where he found a note and a gift bag with a set of gold jingle bells inside. They are the words of a proud and gushing sister who counts herself privileged to have spent the last 28 years with the best big-little brother by her side that a girl could ask for.

Bookishly yours,

Vanessa

For those who speak the Español, the (grainy) video of the speech.

“First I want to give thanks to Melissa and Alejandro for letting me say a few words tonight, because when I first asked Ale if I could do so, he looked a little nervous. Just because eeevery once in a while I like to enjoy a glass of wine, a little tequila, he looked at me like he thought I was going to hide a shot in my bouquet at church. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” **leans into bouquet and slurps.** Like I was going to get up there and hit him with the, “BROTHER! I fucking love you! MELI! You took BOTH of my rooms away!”

But in all seriousness, let me tell you a story.

Almost 32 years ago, a great blessing was bestowed upon my parents: I was born. We spent a few marvelous years together, the three of us. Then one day my parents got to talking, I think, and said to each other, “Life is, like, too easy right now, right? We need a little drama. I mean look at Vanessa: she behaves so well, she’s going to be very studious and respectful. Let’s try again and see if we get a real troublemaker. And in January 1988, tadaaaaa! *points at brother* Trouble arrived.

At first, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really into this new addition to our family. My parents introduced him to me, he started to cry and I said, “Ummm, thank you so much buuut no. Return him, yeah? Let’s go play!” They didn’t listen.

We learned very quickly how different one kid can be from the next. I loved to read, I played by myself with my dolls. My brother spent all his time running around, scaling walls, sliding down the windshield of my grandfather’s station wagon like it was a slide, always covered in dirt. But we loved each other.

That love was not aaaaalways super obvious. One day my parents had to sit me down and say, “Look kid, when your brother hits you, you have to hit him back.” And I was like, “No, he’s my little brother!” But this kid would sock me, and as soon as he saw me crying would start to cry himself. “No sister, don’t cryyyyy!” One time he took a chunk of gum and stuck it in my hair, and when I started crying proceeded to take more gum and put it in his hair. My parents walked in to find us two crying fools with wads of gum in our hair. They asked what happened; I cried, “He put gum in my hair!” and he countered, “I put gum in her hair!” and off they sent him to his room to be punished.

What my parents didn’t know was this: our bedrooms were connected by a wall in our closets, and in this wall was a small hole in the corner where cables were run though. In this hole, we’d placed a couple of jingle bells; when one of us was in trouble (i.e. when he was in trouble), one of us would climb in the closet and ring the bell. This was the sign for the other of us to come to the closet and close the door so my parents wouldn’t hear. There through that tiny hole in the wall, we’d talk. He’d asked me for forgiveness, I’d forgive him. What started with tears always ended in laughs and jokes and stories.

So, why have I shared this story? Well today, the years have passed. I am getting ready to leave the house that Alejandro has shared with me these two years. Our bedrooms there were also connected by a wall, and what long ago were jingle bells are now cell phones – calls, texts. And the calls/messages from my brother have a specific ringtone in my phone, which I’ve never shared. I haven’t changed that tone in years and that tone is called, “Bell.” That bell serves as a reminder of the past, to remind me that the love between brother and sister cannot be separated by any walls, by distance, by time.

So today, Brother, I congratulate you. I’d like to say to Meli that I love you so much like a sister for making my brother a better man - happy, content, and less angry THANK GOD. Finally I’d like to say to my brother that I am always here for you like you are for me, and if you ever need anything, all you have to do is ring the bell.”

Then there's this one... sober, but all the way up!

Cousins and friends, but really all my brothers. #weweresober

My survival squad - makeup guru, spiritual and comedic guide, tequila providers, and all around favorite people.

Chanel's finest keeping my makeup on fleek.

When the video crew are your friends. #lit #workhardplayhard #allthewayup #wheredanuggetsat

Photos are both from my personal collection and courtesy of the fabulous Monique Feil. http://www.moniquefeil.com

The Look of Love

February 15, 2016 by Vanessa Diaz

Buenos Diaz! I’m putting this post together on Valentine’s Day, a perfectly lovely day that I spent most of at a secret solo sanctuary away from home. I read and wrote in a Harry Potter t-shirt with a bottle of wine and snacks of all sorts. Because I forgot to bring a glass to drink out of or any kind of cutlery, I drank the wine straight from the bottle and took bites of cheese straight from the block. I am nothing if not the picture of classiness.

Today is supposed to be about love though, so earlier I joined some of the people I love most for breakfast – my parents and brother. We noshed at a favorite Mexican spot where the tortillas are made right there in the restaurant and are as thick as the hips they go straight to when I eat them. My favorite element of the meal was that for once, we weren’t approached like we usually are by a camera-toting female offering to take a free photo of us. That “free” photo is tiny and plastered with the restaurant logo, clearly meant to be a gateway to prettier, higher-quality prints costing $15.00 each. It’s uncomfortable enough to have to refuse the accompanying sales pitch; it’s super f*cking awkward to have to let the chick know that my brother and I are indeed siblings and not the “cute couple” she keeps referring to us as. This is what happens when you look nothing like your brother and he’s a good looking dude.

Keeping with the trend of surrounding ourselves in love, we made our way as a family over to a place near and dear to our hearts: Costco. After picking out a gorgeous arrangement of roses and lilies for my brother's fiancé (plus one for my mom - dad wasn't going to be upstaged), we walked towards the back of the store and approached the aisle containing the camping gear. My dad has had his eye on a dome tent, a model that boasts a 60-second setup and can accommodate five or six people, for at least a year. He has longed for that bad boy, excitedly explaining how useful it would be for trips to the park or beach or for toting around the grandkids, should my brother and I ever get it together and actually decide to produce any. He’s caressed the damn tent lovingly while walking away from it each time though, whispering “Someday!” to it the way I do to pricey rings, private libraries or travel ads to the UK. The tent was only around $80 but this amount has never been justifiable to my retiree father, who’s always been frugal and not one to indulge his fancies.

This time though, he decided it was time to treat himself – well, almost. My brother and I overheard him telling my mom that with his next pension check, he’d finally pull the trigger. My brother quickly chimed in to remind us all that he was the only one of the group with a Costco card, so he was going to pay for everything anyway and had no problem spotting my dad the cost of the tent. He and I will likely end up splitting the cost anyway as a present; it’s not that my parents can’t afford it, it’s that they feel guilty spending money on themselves.

I can’t help but look back on my childhood here. My parents put both my brother and I through private school as kids, a feat my parents struggled to afford but figured out as best they could in the name of giving us a solid education. At one point, the financial burden forced them to evaluate whether they could continue to keep us in Catholic school. This caused my parents a great deal of consternation; the part of town we lived in didn’t boast a particularly stellar public school system but did have the advantage of being $Free.99. When they sat me down to tell me that I might have to switch schools, I cried my freckly little face off. I begged and pleaded with them to let me stay with my friends, as though they were exacting an unjust punishment and not trying to keep their heads above water. I was breaking their hearts without a clue that I was going so.

So they continued to make it work, taking advantage of every possible tuition break available: endless volunteer shifts at every carnival, gala and bake sale, helping out at the school itself, signing us up to sell a ridiculous amount of those World’s Famous Chocolates or any other item the school asked us to hock. When it came time to pick a high school, I can only imagine my parent’s horror and simultaneous relief when I asked to be sent to a public school. My dad loathed the idea of me going to the local high school for a variety of reasons, insisting he'd find a way to afford one of the two Catholic high schools that were the natural next step for the majority of my classmates. Still, the idea of a free education held significant appeal; my parents sure as hell didn’t have a five-digit sum of money to fork over every year, not by a stretch.

One night I walked by my parents’ bedroom on my way to bed, and through a sliver in the mostly closed door, I saw my dad wringing his hands through his hair. Even if we hadn’t just discussed my educational future at length over dinner, I wouldn’t have had to think too hard to guess the source of his agony. I was starting to get it at the tender age of 13, to grasp the enormous weight that accompanies the making of choices that affect your children’s futures. He was stressing over me, over what to do with me.

The following morning, I formulated a plan: I’d file a request with the school board to be allowed to attend a high school outside of my district. The process took several weeks and involved multiple interviews with counselors, principals and board members. plus carefully written letters and presentations with graphs and fancy pie charts. The school I’d selected after careful analysis of the entire district's AP curriculum, graduation rates and college acceptance ratios was already significantly over-populated; I heard a lot of "no" during the process, an already daunting one for a kid of my age. Imagine my family’s surprise and collective sigh of exuberant relief though when we got the call informing us that my request had been granted. Something about a pre-teen in her best clothes and a giant portfolio with big dreams must have won someone over. Thus was born the story my dad would tell about a thousand time in the years that followed. He was so proud of me, and elated that he could send me off to high school in peace.

My parents’ sacrifice was far from over though. Attending a school out of my district meant a longer commute; this meant that my mother had to pick up and drop off her two children in different parts of town every day, a challenge even before factoring in the many sports practices, dance rehearsals, study groups, volunteer shifts, etc. Then after high school, both my brother and I decided to pursue education at private universities. The scholarships and grants helped but weren’t enough; my parents took out loans to help afford the cost of our education. They held on to cars that badly needed replacing but managed to help my brother and I get cars of our own. They never took a single vacation or bought themselves one nice thing for themselves. They put their children above all things always – and what’s more, they were happy to do it.

The thing about all of this is that 98% of the time, my parents hid their struggle. They rarely let on to the fact that making ends meet was a challenge, never made my brother or I feel like we owed them anything or like it was all a lot to manage. Instead they celebrated every good grade, every victory, every performance. They made us feel special and treasured and important and unstoppable. They loved us every day, unequivocally, unwaveringly.

So as I stood in line at Costco with my successful, educated and soon-to-be-married brother and my goofy, affectionate parents, I felt pride. I’m proud to be the daughter of a man who has brought his wife flowers every Valentine’s Day and anniversary as far as I can remember, the first man to bring me flowers and to put a ring on my finger. I’m proud to be the daughter of a woman who is loved by everyone everywhere and who leads always with her heart. I’m proud that, though a little bit lost and a lot of a dreamer, I am still deemed worthy of their decades of enormous sacrifice; they remind me of this fact every chance they get. To them, it was all so worth it.

To get these people a Costco camper then seems a little anti-climactic, especially with no cute offspring to load it with and sweeten the pot. “Thanks for all the self-denial, folks! Here’s an $80 camper thing to even the score!” Still, look at the man’s face, the sheer, unbridled joy of a wish made reality. This is the man that taught me how to love, folks. May you all feel this kind of love in your lives today and every other day.

Same Love

November 16, 2015 by Vanessa Diaz

Last weekend I went to a wedding in Malibu for which much preparation was required, i.e. a solid round of stretching and the ingestion of copious electrolytes and carbohydrates. Any wedding with an open bar has the potential for debauchery, but when the wedding involves a group of friends I now like to call Spain Gang & Associates (SGA), you really have no choice but to up the anti-hangover ante.

Bride Nicole and groom Manny are a lovely couple who were brought together when another lovely couple, Victor and Leandra Negrete, asked each of them to be part of their own wedding party. Nicole had known Leandra since middle school, Manny had known Victor since studying abroad with him during undergrad in Spain. The Negretes apparently knew exactly what they were doing when they paired up these two crazy kids because they hit it off damn near right away. They may or may not have been spotted making out the night of the very wedding.

A couple of blissful years of dating later, Manny and Nicole announced that they’d be moving to Virginia as part of Manny’s military commitment as a Naval Psychologist. Mere days before packing up their belongings to make the cross-country trek from SoCal, a group of us were invited to a beachside rendezvous under the guise of celebrating Manny’s 30th birthday. We drank Malibu and rum from reusable Starbucks cups and jumped around in an illegal bounce-house, then Manny proposed to Nicole with a ring pop while he and a group of his closest friends reenacted the “Nightman Cometh” musical from “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” That sentence pretty much tells you everything you need to know, but allow me to take you back a bit further.

My first time hanging out with Manny was back before he or I had ever met Nicole. I was living in San Diego and had come up to LA to visit Leandra and Victor for the weekend. Manny was in town from Northern California so we went out to dinner in Hollywood, and thus began an evening that culminated in Manny’s shirtless Flamenco dance-off with a stranger at a local bar. Afterwards we all went to McDonalds and Manny climbed onto the roof of said establishment; meanwhile Victor asked the drive-thru dude for a McNugget for Caramia, Leandra’s pet Chihuahua who we’d picked up for the short ride to Mickie D’s. Back at Leandra and Victor’s place, Manny and Victor purchased the domain name www.whatwouldcharliesheendo.me . They made shirts with this WWCSD slogan and later wore them proudly for Victor’s bachelor party kick off: Tough Mudder. (It should be noted that this all went down years ago during Charlie Sheen’s “winning!” days, for as I sit here and edit, some unfortunate news of Mr. Sheen’s health has just been revealed).

Not long thereafter, Manny moved down to San Diego to commence a rotation at MCAS Miramar. Little by little, other members of SGA became San Diego residents as well and I was pleasantly surprised to have a new set of friends in my hometown. Soon Nicole was a part of the bunch and the good times kept rolling: examples of pre-gaming activities includes zombie shoot-outs, Call Me Maybe dance parties, or a fun little game wherein participants take a drink each time Sting says the name “Roxane” during the song of the same name.

Two years ago, SGA made its way to Palm Springs for a post-holiday Gatsby-themed celebration at the home of Nicole’s grandmother. We played Jenga and Twister and got iced in between, then came a round of Cards Against Humanity fueled by shots of Fireball. I was somehow delegated to yell “I VOLUNTEER! I VOLUNTEER! I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!” each time someone volunteered to take a penalty drink in someone else’s stead. Our friend Jefe had to take a drop of bubble-bath to the eye, proving that the whole “tear-free” bit on the label is a giant pile of lies. Later we ordered pizza and jumped in the hot tub in our costumes. At some point, Manny put on a Spiderman suit and gave his favorite William Wallace freedom speech to an audience of tipsy faces that had been painted Braveheart blue.

Then there was the time when my friend Celina quit her job and sold her house to travel the world for a year; her going away party entailed an entire weekend of 90s themed shenanigans. SGA strolled the campus and surrounding streets of she and Manny’s Alma Mater UC Davis, clad at all times in items like homemade light-up sneakers, pagers with troll doll accents, acid-wash jeans and all the flannel you could ever hope for. We took over a local dive-bar, hijacking the juke box to play strictly 90s hits – that is, with a small interlude for the Harlem Shake and Elvis Crespo’s Suavemente. At one point during the weekend, Manny and Nicole sat us all down for a special surprise – a reenactment of sorts of the Baywatch theme song, red swim trunks and high-cut one-piece included.

How then could this wedding of dynamically fun-loving people be anything short of amazing? Set to the backdrop of a picturesque Malibu beach around sunset, the bridal party walked down the aisle to a medley of songs that included Mariah Carey’s Fantasy and Billy Idol’s White Wedding. Our place cards were each hung delicately off bottles of everyone’s favorite sweet and syrupy beverage: you guessed it, Smirnoff Ice. Groomsmen Robbie was the wedding’s surprise Sexy Sax Man, whose rendition of Careless Whisper had half the room roaring on its feet and the other half going, “Who the hell invited this guy?!”

The DJ had us screaming the lyrics to Don’t Stop Believing like it was last call, except it was only 7:46 PM and the night had quite literally just begun. I busted out Britney and Beyoncé choreography like I had any business doing so and a group of the fellas proved that Ace of Base is the best music to grind (with each other) to. Friends Romo and Tyler tried to recreate the famous leap from Dirty Dancing only to be one-upped by the groom who fully committed to that leap and ended up with a facial bruise as proof. There were photo booths and props, non-stop dancing, and parking lot parties at McDonald's afterwards. My friend Julie and I ate half a package of Double Stuft Oreos at 1:00 AM that we may not have paid actually for… and all of this was documented via an epic 500+ second Snapchat story.

Before the bacchanalia and dance-floor frivolity though, Victor and Leandra gave a lovely wedding toast in which they took turns speaking humbly of their role in Manny and Nicole's union. Victor shared hilarious anecdotes of their first arranged meeting (thanks for taking a bathroom break Vito, we owe this wedding to you). Then Leandra summarized their compatibility with one perfectly eloquent thought: Manny and Nicole are so, so different in so, so many ways, but the way they love and approach the things they love is the same. Swoon.

Nicole probably wasn’t looking for a man who on the eve of his wedding would gift warrior spears to his groomsmen after cutting a Star Wars groom’s cake with a Samurai sword to the tune of The Final Countdown. She got one though and he’s perfect for her, for he loves passionately, outrageously, and genuinely – just like she does. I raise a glass, a Smirnoff Ice even, to that same love, the kind of love that makes these two wonderful and distinct personalities such fierce friends, gracious hosts, empathetic listeners and lovers of life. Congratulations to you, Manny and Nicole. May we each find someone who loves like you do, like we do, and never let them go.

V-Day

February 14, 2015 by Vanessa Diaz

Buenos Diaz! It’s Valentine’s Day, that day on the calendar that makes singles sick, lovebirds swoon, and people with kids wonder whether they bought enough Valentines for everyone in Timmy or Jenny’s class and whether they’re bad parents for choosing the store-bought cupcakes over the homemade and Pinterest-inspired. Today is also confession day here at Buenos Diaz. Gather round now, come in close. Can everyone hear me? OK, here goes.
I, Vanessa Diaz, am a girl, and sometimes I act like one.

Honest to God, 97.6 percent of the time I don’t mind and even enjoy being single. Knowing how to be alone and relish it is something I’m quite proud of, really. I like that I can go see a movie, take a trip to the Farmers Market, sit at a restaurant or coffee shop or lay out in the park all by my lonesome and not feel a desperate need to be accompanied if company isn’t in the cards that day. I’ve been very independent for as long as I can remember, so tell me why this year there is something about this saccharine-soaked, commercial concoction of a holiday that for whatever nonsensical reason really has me thinking deeply about my life choices. It feels pathetic. I will elaborate.

I hate having to admit this because it makes me sound like one of those girls, the ones who bitterly denounce “Singles Awareness Day” by sulking on their couch listening to Adele and eating Godiva. Maybe it’s the flower deliveries to people not named Vanessa at work or the emotion bubbling beneath the surface of my composure every time I realize I am quitting my job in 3 weeks. Maybe it’s because my favorite of favorites is no longer a well I can draw from and that person is going away and shacking up with someone for the love-filled weekend while I’m sitting here noshing on Gourmet Inka Corn (corn nuts for the grown and sexy) with a glass of Nebbiolo (I wrote this Friday night, I’m not being a booze-hound before 9am).

I just suddenly miss… affection. I miss nervous first kisses, or warm, familiar ones that melt you; I miss butterflies, anticipation, cutesy gestures, intense bouts of eye contact; hands in my hair, hands on my face, eyes wide open, eyes wide shut. I miss hand-holding, flirting, passion, surrender. I miss hearing someone call me pretty. I miss feeling pretty.

The worst part though is the feeling of guilt, that sense of “I’m not supposed to feel the feelings!” that eats at me as someone who normally thinks of themselves as strong, independent and not at all why-aren’t-I-in-a-relationship centric. I feel like I should be impervious to these juvenile affectations, like its sacrilege to miss the warmth, the smell, the feel of a man and still call myself a feminist. This is especially true now that I’ve reached an age where I think I’m supposed to be enlightened and above all of this mess, so now I’m not only feeling out of sorts but feel dumb for feeling that way to begin with. I feel like I’m betraying my own ideals.

I’m not betraying anything though. I’m just a woman. I’m allowed to feel and need and want. So I will confess that I do in fact feel and need and want and that doesn’t make me any less self-possessed. Yeah, I allowed myself those thirty seconds (ok, minutes) of feeling sorry for myself, then I decided to get up, turn on the lights and think of V Day as just that: V Day. V Day as in Me day. I may not be in love, but I am loved and I do love. The rest of this blog post will focus on that love. Here are some people who aren’t obligated to love me out of a blood relation.

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I have a friend who shares my not-so-guilty pleasures plus love of steak, bright lipstick, beautiful white boys and getting on planes. We Snapchat our workouts and pics of food afterwards. In the young and ratchet days when on a crowded Vegas dance floor getting the bump-and-grind treatment from a brotha with plans, she motioned to me, pointed down at the guy and said, “V, do you want a hit?” because she didn’t want me to be left out. That poor guy looked at her hurt like, “Are you pimping me to your girl right now?” and I just about died from laughter.

I have a friend who calls me at 6am to tell me that she’s proud of me, who two years ago looked me in the eye over brunch and said, “So you’re not an author yet, but you ARE a writer, Call yourself one.” She’s black and from LA’s Valley and I’m a San Diego Latina but somehow, someway, she is my twin. We bond over books and beautiful words, delight in sarcastic wit and get into good song be it Jay or Jill or that trap music. She’s been telling me I was pretty since the day I met her and one of these days I’ll believe her.

I have a friend who for years now I’ve been calling the poster child for pursuing your passion. She pushes me in ways both overt and covert and though we may not speak often it’s meaningful when we do. She brought me to wine, let me lean on her at low points, and never made me feel stupid for loving someone I couldn’t have. She once put a slice of salami on my sangria glass because we were all out of strawberries and has dared me to dream recently in a very big and international way.

I have a friend who knows it all, the good, the bad, the ugly plus the emo, the insecure, the crazy and the expectant, all of it wrapped up in big hair and too much jewelry. He’s talked me off a ledge, showed me lightening in summer, sends me YouTube videos of hilarious throwback rap jams and tags me in stuff about books and pretty places. He’s brilliant and witty and maddeningly stubborn, pushing buttons and boundaries and schooling me in emoji warfare. He knows what I need to hear/feel and knows when things are hard for me, he tells me I’m important because I need to be reminded and even when we’re not agreeing are close in an atypical way. He encourages my honesty even when it isn’t easy, like he wants me to be sassier, louder, braver, a bigger pain in the ass if it means coming into my own.

I have a friend who reminds me that I’m talented and worthy of more than I’m sometimes brave enough to ask for, who challenges me as a writer and gets me to do things in the name of “research.” As undergrads we spent the night before final exams dancing to Afro-Cuban beats at Zanzibar, banking on my freakish memory to get us through the tests because sometimes you just have to dance. She’s shared a $300 bar tab, a stash of emergency chocolate and many life conversations with me and reminded me last night in a moment of “help, I’m a little lost” that I’m not busted. She gets my struggles and I get hers, and she’s the only person I’ll let speak cutesified Spanish to me so please don’t try it because one is enough.

You know what’s awesome- I could go on for DAYS. I have a ginger who frolicks on bays with me, who encourages me and laughs with me about words that rhyme and unattractive dance moves; I have a boss who’s a BFF who let me go supportively because she knew I’d found my passion and because she shares that passion too. I have a gypsy life-shift Sherpa who takes me on Baja adventures and tells me to keep on dreaming. I have so, so, so much love in my life that it almost seems silly to want more.

If today you find yourself madly in love with someone who loves you too, I’m truly very happy for you. I encourage you to revel in love because love is an amazing thing and even if it’s corny and cheesy to make a big deal out of it on Valentine’s Day- so what! Go for it! The world needs a little more love. Go be sappy and happy about it and let the haters hate. If you’re single like me, I salute you just the same! Love is probably all around you like it is for me, you may just have to make a list and write it out to remember that. Do it, you’ll surprise yourself.

I am now about to go enjoy my V-Day with a group of beloved friends that I am lucky to have in my life. I’m also going to lather on the SPF because I live in San Diego which has a blatant disrespect for winter. I will leave you with some wise words from Hugh Grant, a classic quote from a classic movie.

“It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

Happy Valentine's Day!

Bookishly Yours,

Vanessa

Linked In

November 13, 2014 by Vanessa Diaz

Buenos Diaz! So, it was a couple of years ago that a tall, slender, red-headed beauty in the state of Arizona joined an online community called for professional networking. A friend suggested she join to make some connections that might aid in her pursuit of landing a job in sunny southern California. This site seemed like as good a start as any in her search for new employment and a new direction, so join Linked In and cross her fingers Miss Ginger quickly did.

It wasn’t long before a strapping young specimen of the male and Polish American persuasion took interest in Miss Ginger’s profile. He was tall, he was dreamy, lived here in San Diego, and worked in a field related to her own. For the latter reasons alone and not at all because of his dashing good looks, she reached out to him via InMail and picked his brain about the job scene. The InMails became Face Time calls, then Face Time lead to texts. It started out platonically enough, but soon the tone began to shift. The convo became a little less “Have you seen this job posting?” and a little more “Hey sexy fox, how many baby foxlets do you want someday? What are your thoughts on Jesus and immigration reform? And do you like cats?”

He liked her, she liked him; he was moved by her passion, she found him endlessly hilarious. He played soccer, she wrote in journals. They both liked cats and country music. They agreed to meet in person and BOOM! CLAP! WOW! Sparks flew, angels sang and trumpets sounded in the distance. Ginger soon packed her bags and joined her beau in California. It was obvious early on that this shit was for real.

This weekend Ginger took another trip, this time down an aisle. There her lover stood waiting to make her a wife. She’s joined Linked In to find a job, she ended up with her soul mate. She’d wanted to connect, and connect she sure did.

Inspired by their the love and commitment, I’ve reflected a lot on how I’ve come to feel about love. So, here we go: Ginger and Kulpa, this one’s for you.

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Lesson 1: Your love’s not my love and my love ain’t your love.

Whether you’re falling in love are deep in the throes of it, inherently someone (and probably multiple someones) will tell you what steps to take next. They’ll tell you what worked for them, or preach about what didn’t; they’ll tell you when it’s too early to do or say or want something, and also when it’s too late to consider such a thing. They’ll offer up a formula for how many days it takes to really know someone. Everyone has two cents to offer you if you want to be happy.

We’ve all been through this; one person will have a friend whose cousin’s dog walker married her husband after knowing him for 3 days and has been married for 50+ years, but someone else will know a girl who knew her man for a week when they walked down the aisle and was divorced quicker than Kim K dumped husband number two. The world will tell you there are certain rules, terms and conditions that you must adhere to and obey or else be destined for loveless misery and a life as a spinster with cats. This just isn’t the case, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m new to this like of thinking- love is truly different from person to person.

I myself spent years thinking people who get engaged before dating for at least a year were absolutely out of their effing minds. My philosophy has been that it’s easy to be dazed and googly-eyed in the first year. It’s what comes next that really sets the tone. Then I met Ginger Spice and the Polish Dream, and I was forced to eat quite the healthy portion of humble pie. They’d dated for a grand total of seven months when they got engaged and there is nothing about that which makes any less than perfect sense to me.

Now, do I think this whirlwind romance makes sense for everyone? Nah, playa. What works for Couple A may spell disaster for Couple B. There are no universal rules, no blueprint or foolproof recipe that ensures a particular outcome in a relationship. Yes, there are certain truths about love that I think we can all agree on; overall though, I think that love is just too complex and delicate a thing to be or mean the same thing for the millions of people on this planet and their various DNA combinations. Love is too beautifully wondrous and mysterious a thing to be approached so methodically, so practically. I’ve vowed recently never scoff at love just because it’s packaged a little differently than the common ideal. Your love is different than mine, and that’s how it should be.

Lesson 2: Love is a choice.

How many times have you heard the words, “You can’t choose who you love?” If you’re anything like me, the answer is “a f*ck ton.” Your wording might be different than mine. Sorry about that.

Accepting that this adage is not indeed true has been one of the greater revelations of my life. It is a concept first brought to my attention by one of my best friends Daisy after attending a very spiritual wedding treat with her fiancé a few weeks ago. The realization that love is actually a choice has been sobering and at once liberating in turn. If you think about it, “you can’t choose who you’re attracted to” is far more accurate a statement. Chemistry, sparks, butterflies, chills- those are the feelings and sensations that you can’t fake or force. They may take time to develop but they’re either going to be there, or not. If they are, you may fall in love if the timing, lighting or alcohol by volume is right.

Falling in love, however, is not the same as actively loving someone- that’s a horse of a different color. You fall without thinking or planning, you stay because you want and then choose to. Loving someone, especially after the gloss and sparkle of a new relationship has waned, is indeed something we can choose to either pursue or abandon. We choose whether to continue down that path, to give of ourselves, to make time for this other person, to consider their existence as it affects and fits in with our own. We choose to compromise, to listen; to forgive, to understand; to engage, to be present; to be honest, to be patient. It is not an accident or the result of dumb luck when love endures. It is a voluntary, physical practice that we have to work at, and it isn’t always easy.

This may sound burdensome at first; to me, it’s rather beautiful and empowering. If love is a choice, then we can choose to keep the flame burning. When two people make that courageous choice to say “Hey, so, you’re the one. You make me all kinds of stupid happy. So sit down and strap in, because we’re going to remember our love for one another even when the going gets tough,” that is invigorating and noteworthy. It is my sincerest hope that if I do find someone crazy enough to handle my particular brand of crazy someday, that he be brave enough to choose to love me, actively and honestly with all that he has to give.

Love is friendship on fire.

If there is one thing I know to be true, it is this indeed that love is friendship on fire. I have it engraved on a necklace and I tout the phrase every chance I get. People say this so often that it begins to sound banal, but your partner really should be your best friend. Love works best, in my observance, when it takes on the form on a deep, meaningful, laughter-filled friendship. The couples I know who have persisted and continue to thrive are the ones who are notably each other’s most trusted companion. When my mother has some great and exciting news, my father is the first one she thinks to call. When my friend has a hilarious story to share, she can’t wait to call her boyfriend to tell it. That seems to be the key, to see in your partner not just a person to eat with, sleep with and go to the movies with, but as your favorite person in the world with whom you can’t wait to spend your day.

In closing, to my newlywed friends- I applaud you for daring to making your own rules. They are your own and no one else’s. Own them, live them, thrive in them off into the sunset. I hope you will choose to love one another every bit as much tomorrow as you do today, and every other day as much as the one before. Value your love and the friendship that exists at its core, then set it on fire and let it be the force that binds you. Remember the meaning of the bands you each wear on your fingers and the vows you spoke to each other but a short week ago; I salute your connection and wish you even more happiness that you’ve already known. You’re all linked in and ready to go.; go be happy forever.

Bookishly yours,

Vanessa

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They seriously give each other looks like this all the time.

Maids in Waiting.

This chick. Ugh. Making bridal look effortless.

Ginger and the Bookworm

Love Me Tinder

May 25, 2014 by Vanessa Diaz

It. Has. Been. Too. Long.

I'm such a slacker! I've neglected my blog, which is silly since writing it is one of my favorite pastimes. It envigorates me, it pleases me, it should be a bigger priority! It just seems as of late that I a) have no free time, and b) the free time that I have managed to muster up has been sucked up by the book challenge I've embarked upon for 2014. I've pledged to read fifty books this year- and to whom did I make this pledge, you ask? I don't know- to the book gods. To Jesus. To my imaginary friend. Who cares? I love big books and I cannot lie. Twenty down, thirty to go.

Tonight though- I am finally going to finish a piece that I started over a month ago. It explores a topic that has come up in conversaton increasingly since I turned 29, that magical age where according to some, I should have begun to hear the ticking of an internal clock that for me personally appears to be broken. It's that thing you see all those commercials for, the thing that people like to hint at you needing to try, that thing I'm personally still very on the fence about...

Online dating.

First of all- I have to say that this stuff is getting specific as all hell. We've all heard of Match.com and Eharmony, perhaps you've heard of Christian Mingle or Our Time. That type of specificity seems to sit just fine with me; if you're a good Christian man or woman, I can understand your desire to weed out the druggies, hoochies and other unholy riff raff, just like I totally get that our single senior citizens don't want to consort with the young and the restless twerkers of America whose every other word may or may not be "I can't even." However thanks to the occasional bouts of insomnia which lead to late-night TV perusal on my part, I have come across some hilarious and in some case ridiculous dating sites of which I question either the legitimacy or ridiculous ad campaign. To name few:

Gluten Free Singles- I ask you, do you really need to bond with your mate over your wheat aversion? I have recenlty begun avoiding it myself to alleviate an annoying skin condition, but my scalp issues don't need to rob you of your pasta fix, or rob me of a perfectly fine man just because he likes English muffins or garlic bread.
Farmers Only- This commercial features a talking cow, terrible graphics, and a really country voice-over.... yeah.
Purrsonals- for people who love, you guessed it, cats. I guess all the cat ladies got together and decided that wanted to stop being the poster children for perpetual singledom?
Clown Dating- STOP IT.
7 Or Better- I hope I don't have to explain this one. They require that you send in three pieces of photographic evidence. OMG, knock it off.

Then there are the dating apps, and I'm using the term "dating" loosely here as several of these apps are quite clearly "down to the the deed if your profile pic is hot" driven more than they aim to help you find that special someone. One that's been recently brought to my attention is Tinder, which to be honest struck me initially as the mobile dating app equivalent of "Hot or Not." You upload your pic to a profile then narrow down a few things: what sex you're interested in, what geographic radius you'd like to search in, and what age range you'd like to include in your search. You can upload a few more photos if you like (the average I saw was five) and include a few sentences about yourself. You set your parmeters , then presto: you are presented with a list of potentials stacked like a deck of cards.

The app will tell you if the person whose profile you're looking at a) shares any Facebook friends with you, and b) shares any of your interests, data also pulled from Facebook (i.e. the pages you like). If you like what you see, you swipe right on the screen; if you don't, you swipe left to pass. If you swiped right and that individual swiped right for you as well, boom! It's a match. What I do like about the app is that you don't find out whether the person passed on you, per se. If you "choose" the person, they will only show up as one of your matches if they "chose" you in return. In other words, you don't have to face any real rejection; if you choose a person and they want nothing to do with you, there is no nasty pop-up reading "You're kidding, right? Dream on." That individual simply won't show up in your list of matches. As one of my best friends Carlos described it, "it's efficient. Yes/no, chat if mutual. Now if my chat game isn't nonsense, let's get coffee."

I gave this thing a try at the behest of my friend Celina who had some formidable success with it. I explained my initial aversion to this type of stuff to her, at which point she suggested I give it a shot if nothing else as a social experiment. She pointed out the entertainment factor, i.e. the ridiculous things people have to say about themselves in their profiles and/or even more ridiculous selfies people post to entice that right swipe. She also introduced me to something we call the Live Tinder, wherein you narrow the search radius to less than a mile and can literally find people (very) near you in real time. No lie- the "live tinder" is a lil' mucho for me. But I did sign up to be a good sport, and because I am often criticized for not being open to trying new things when it comes to dating. So- I came, I saw, I Tindered. Turns out I suck at Tinder.

It would appear from my Tinder findings that 90% of the bachelors in San Diego have washboard abs, tattoos and spend all of their time snowboarding, surfing and running marathons. Honestly, I find that intimidating. I get it, I do live in America's Finest City and that fact alone is going to heavily shape the types of people I'm going to encounter. I'm not averse to fitness, in fact I love to work up a good sweat- I like hiking, yoga, dance, bootcamp, kicckboxing, etc. I am not however going to be on Sports Illustrated any time soon and am flat out put off by all the men with perfect physiques, megawatt smiles, all kinds of beautiful-hued eyes. You'd think I'd have swiped right repeatedly at the sight of these beautiful specimens, especially since that whole rejection factor is rather elimianted and because I'd be a fool not to feel some attraction....

Not so. I feel nothing for these beautiful people.

I'm trying to work out for myself whether that's normal or not. I'm reminded of something Carlos has told me on more than one occasion, which is that men fall in love with what they see while women fall in love with what they hear. He was referring to attraction more than actual love of course, and I'm beginning to see how right he was, at least from where I'm sitting. If I really sit down and think about it it, it's like there's a spell cast on me wherein I'm blinded/immune to physical attraction until my brain has fallen for a man's brain first (leave it to me to use spells in my analysis). The spell is lifted (or shall we say the blinders are removed) if and only if I've determined a man to be intelligent, kind, funny and, you know, not a douchebag. When that checklist is fulfilled, I suddenly notice that gorgeous set of green eyes that have been staring at me all along, or the beautiful skin tone, or the full lips, etc. Prior to me determing those things about you, you're kind of just a talking lump of clay and I'm a girl which a paper bag over her head.

So: if you are me, an ardent sapiosexual who has a "Talk Nerdy To Me" print hanging on her wall at work and who wants to know what books you've read and liked in the last five years before our conversation can go any further and I can become privy to your attractiveness, will an app like Tinder ever really work? Is it just a black-and-white fact that dating sites/apps don't work for people like me, or do "people like me" need to just be more open-minded, less uptight, more self-confident, etc and thus make dating sites/apps work for them? This whole time I've justified my aversion to online dating with the assertion that I don't feel a sense or urgency to date or get married. And this holds true for me even now- I'm very much someone who prefers for things to happen to me organically, who subscribes to a kind-of laissez-faire relationsip economics theory wherein I assume that the things that need to happen for me will happen in their own time without too much active intervention on my part.

This predisposition on my part made it very awkward when I read my cousin Alexis in to my experimentaton with the app and showed it to her. I was explaining how it worked when she saw a guy in my feed who she thought might be good for me and swiped right- so of course, he was one of my matches. A whole little fanfare went off on my phone screen, like I'd just advanced to the next level on a video game and I was being congratulated for accomplishing this feat. I engaged in a little back and forth chat but didn't feel the need to take it any further (Sorry Mauricio). The whole thing felt contrived, and I couldn't shake that feeling hard as I tried to do so.

The question then becomes: am I TOO old-fashioned in my approach to romance or just old-fashioned enough? I want to be able to tell my kids that their father and I met when we bumped into each other at a bookstore or at a mutual friend's party, or hell, at a stoplight. For better or worse, I'm not all that enthused about having to tell them we met because my pic was cute and he swiped to the right, or even that my list of traits matched Daddy's set of traits according to an alogorithm on a site measuring 29 dimensiosn of compatibility. Is that old-school but admirable, or am I being a luddite, immovable ostrich with my head resolutely shoved in the sand?

The truth is that I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here because love, attraction and their other related states represent differet things for different people. Try as we may to boil them down to a science, I have the sneeking suspicion that they will continue to rail against out efforts to figure them out completely. We all have different triggers, different soft spots, different predilectons and predispositions; what makes me swoon may make you want to punch a bunny, and what makes you want to vomit may just make my heart flutter. Online dating will work for some and not for others- I'm not sure what category I land in yet. What I do know is that this entire line of inquiry exists because matters of the heart aren't logical.

I think that's my favorite thing about them.

Ever hopeful,
Vanessa