Me & the Crying Cat

Leo, my cat, would not stop crying. I can take a little kitty whine here and there, but he had literally been on a roll for the last three days nonstop. Last night he wouldn’t let me fall asleep for hours, then he woke me up in the middle of the night, then he woke up this morning—a wail ten times more obnoxious than my alarm. 

Rowr, rowr, rowr, rowr, rowr, rowr, rowr.

Crying.

Over and over and over. For hours.

I knew what he wanted. He wanted to go outside but I wouldn’t let him. There’s a ton of feral cats out there and these guys are raggedy, scarred and tough. I’ve seen one of the tabbies, who’s missing an eyeball, literally leap up a 6ft. fence, no problem—20-pound Leo can barely jump up the bed. The poor guy doesn’t stand a chance against them. It’d be like throwing Steve Erkel into a bar full of Crips. “You’re not going outside!” I yelled at him. I was trying to relax on the couch but his crying was making me slightly delirious. Maybe because I felt like crying too…

A couple months ago, I met a writer at an open mic in the city. After amazing conversation, she asked to see some of my work. I couldn’t believe it. Me? Send my writing to her—an established, renowned writer?! I polished several of my stories mercilessly: reading and re-reading them until there was not a single detail I could think of to edit. When the ‘message sent’ popped up on my screen, I felt like I’d just run a hundred mile marathon. And indeed, my brain had.

I wasn’t bummed when I checked my email 14 times a day those first two days with no response. She was busy, I told myself. She had a life. I checked my email profusely for a week and two weeks after, even running to the computer to see if I’d missed any messages those 4 minutes I’d escaped to the bathroom. I politely sent another email weeks later as a follow-up, and offered to re-send my work if I had not done it correctly. More time passed: nada. Was I that bad a rookie that I did not even deserve a response? Or did she just get swallowed up in a blizzard that spit her back out in the Bermuda Triangle?

I was bummed but not broken as I excited myself over my next possibility. A local paper was looking for queer-themed short stories to publish. I spent an entire afternoon scripting my synopsis about the stories I’m working on, a brief bio as requested, even including a link to my blog. I haven’t heard back from them. I won’t hear back from them. In the writer’s world, an acknowledged rejection is diplomatic. All other forms of it usually come as nothing at all.

Leo was crying louder than ever. His whole mouth opened wide as he shouted his one desperate request in my face: ROWR!

I clutched my head on the couch, trying to calm myself. Boo-hoo, so I got another rejection to add to my pile of manuscript rejections that, together, are probably thicker than my own novel. I’m a sensitive person but I can’t let myself get sensitive about my work. I told myself when I chose this profession that I would need to grow a skin tougher than an alligator’s. Consider people’s critiques sensibly, but never let them break me. You should hear the voice in my head; I’ve seen pissed off football coaches be nicer to their players than the coach in my head is with me. “Big deal! Crying’s for babies! Pick your whiny ass up and try again! No one said this shit would be easy.”

ROWRRR!!! Leo cried.

            Sometimes I look at the “regular” 9-5ers in my bar. How easy it almost seems. To go to a job in those spiffy suits, and to have a steady salary where your method of payment isn’t indicative on how well you kiss ass for a decent tip. Benefits, vacation pay, enough to support your family: a regular job. It all seems so easy. Why then, can’t I bring myself to do it—to give in and live that good ol’ classic American dream? Because. I can’t. I have this yearning inside me that’s only soothed once its words are spewed out and onto a page, toyed with, manipulated, placed in a certain rhythm the way notes in a song harmonize. People read the words, probably have no idea how many times I’ve read and re-read the same sentence—scrutinizing every last comma and giving the illusion that the metaphors I pull from my mind like a rabbit out of a hat is merely effortless. If my work flows as smoothly as rainwater gushing downstream, I have done my job as a writer. And while I may envy the simple life of one who is not an artist, I would not trade my skill, my talent, my passion, my artwork for anything in the world. Do flowers wish to be ordinary weeds? No! I will never settle for complacency simply because it is easier. What a baby I was being, whining about a couple measly rejections! That was the coach inside yelling at me, telling me to toughen up, get over it, and move on. I began crying and when it called me a wimp for crying, I began crying even more, with Leo of course crying next to me.

“What do you want?” I pleaded with him, even though I knew. I looked outside. It was cold, the sky covered in spongy clouds of grey that promised rain. I thought of the lions I’d seen caged in some hotel in Vegas the week before. The most magnificent creatures you’d ever seen…depressed in a tiny enclosure as an attendant poked them with sticks to try to play ball for the crowd. I looked at Leo and sighed. “You’re lucky those lions almost made me cry,” I muttered.

I’d barely opened the door when he made a dash for it. Ran outside so fast and downstairs into the mini garden where his tail flicked back and forth excitedly. Sniffing flowers and rubbing his whiskers on the feathered sprouts of grass that shot out of the ground, he finally seemed content. Someday I’ll have my own kids and will have to watch them burn some steam off at the playground. For now, I have Leo.

Settling down on the steps of the deck, I pondered these tornadoes in my mind, my frustrations wringing out inside of me like soiled rags. I smeared the ooze of my tears across my face.

All of a sudden, I felt something pulling at me—that tug people feel when someone’s staring at them. I looked up, curious to the source of it. The city’s gloom of fog still loomed above, but in a small patch of blue, a huge balloon shot across the sky. What struck me at seeing it was not just that it was a plain ol’ balloon, but that it was a butterfly; an icon that, before they became incredibly stylish, I used to be obsessed with. It could’ve been any passing balloon, but as my eyes drained themselves silly on the porch steps aching for some kind of sign to continue pursuing this nearly impossible dream, I let myself be selfish, and say, ‘that butterfly floating across the sky was just for me.’

I wondered if it was an angelic wink from my cousin Tavo, who always encouraged my writing before he passed away; or my Aunt Lucy who was always so tender and kind, and would’ve wanted me to go on. Or maybe if it was just a reflection of me: of my hope, and all the manifestations I’ve put into the universe to someday “make it” as a writer. My heart soared as the butterfly twisted, floating up, up and upwards, capturing what little sunlight was left and shining from it magnificently.

Then, almost as quickly as it had come into my vision, it disappeared, the phantom of fog concealing it away under its cape.

            It was cold, and I began to shiver. Leo had had his 20 minutes in the yard. I scooped him up in my arms and brought him inside. He did not resist, fuss or even cry.

After dinner, I sat back down at the computer and began to write this story. I finished my first draft (a whopping 8 pages, single spaced). Half of it will be cut out, and the rest will be insanely crafted and detailed, much like Edward Scissorhands would do on a huge shrub. Four hours have passed—it could’ve been half an hour for all I knew. This story, the tears, everything has spilled out of me. My simple omen has been the kick I need to continue on, and to tell that coach in my head to be a little kinder. Someday I’ll be successful. Someday people will actually purchase my work, and I’ll have achieved a sense of establishment. For now, I have my youth, my stories, blessings in the sky, and most importantly: a quiet cat purring next to me.

© Sarah C. Jimenez 2011, All Rights Reserved

Pride? Hey Ya!

Friday night, baby!! I was getting out of work and into a cab to meet my peeps at the Wild Side West, an old saloon-themed dive in Bernal that’s usually filled with cute lesbians guzzling down booze and playing pool. It was a crappy night at my bar. I made $50 less than I’d wanted, and was still irked over some English dude who stiffed me twice, then had the Euro balls to ask me where the nearest strip joint was. Whatever. It was Gay Pride weekend, cousin Edna was in town, and the celebration was kickin’ off tonight with drinks, chisme, tacos later at the taco window, and all the unknown theatrics that can happen in-between. 

            All of a sudden, sitting in the back of a Luxor cab, that song came on. Not just any song—that song:

“1,2,3, uh! My baby don’t mess around because she loves me so and this I know for shooo. But does she really wanna but can’t stand to see me walk out the doooor.”

It was OutKast, the Hey Ya! song that came out back in ‘03. I wiggled like a kid under my seatbelt in the backseat, pleading with the cabbie. “I love this song—turn it up!” The driver, a young blonde who was zooming around as if the cab were his Porsche, glanced at me from the rearview mirror. He shrugged, figured why not, and kindly bumped the shit outta the song in the janky cab stereo, static and all.

“Don’t try to fight the feeling cuz the thought alone is killing me right nooow. Thank god for mom and dad for sticking two together cuz we don’t know hooow. Heeeeey yaa! Hey ya!”

Como se dice ‘time warp?!’ I was a young pup again, fresh to Frisco and back in the days when I first lived with my sister in a cute-ass spot on Capp and 24^th. In the cab, I was watching the lights down Mission Street pass me by: past the old theaters that look like sandcastles you dribble at the beach, past The Beauty Bar and Doc’s Clock with inebriated hipsters and Priders spilling out of ‘em, past the waves of rainbow flags that had color-coated the entire city. But the song had swallowed me back in time, and I was back on Capp Street, blasting my stereo and dancing with my ex-novio: a fine-ass Chilango from DF. I was still in the girl-crushing phase in that era, had never even set eyes on the ruca, and didn’t think that someday I could actually be (gasp!) a gay.

“Hey ya! Don’t want to meet your daddy! Just want you in my Caddie!”

           

The chimes of the xylophone! Andre’s sexy croon! The harmonious beats burst and bubbled up inside me. I sang along to myself in the backseat, not shy in front of the cabbie cuz I’d already had two shots to chase down my beer before I’d left work. I remembered the first night I’d met my ex. Everyone at the restaurant was excited, giggling over the quiet new cook who worked the grill. The straight girls were flushed—“Ohmygod, I think he smiled at me!”—and even the gay boys were bouncing around extra cute, suddenly helping the expos run all their food. The ex was tall, surprisingly thin for a guy, with a smooth wave in his hair and creamy skin that should’ve been more tainted from all the liquor and substance absorbed late night after hours.

“Hey ya! Don’t want to meet your momma. Just want to make you cum-a!”

When he chose me out of the entire staff of girls (and boys) who were flinging themselves at him like kids under a bust-up piñata, I felt as if I’d been crowned Prom Queen. I’ve always been beautiful, but I hadn’t grown into my true beauty yet; hadn’t learned to twist my essence from the inside out to truly make it shine. Back then, I was still measuring beauty by how great I looked standing hand-in-hand with a guy who looked like he’d missed his calling as a Calvin Klein underwear model.

“Heeeeey yaa!...Now what’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold!”

The break-up would’ve gone smoother if there hadn’t been lying and cheating, and lying about the cheating. I hadn’t been heart-broken in so long that the torture was almost foreign to me: waking up in tears with my pillow still soggy from them from the night before; revisiting all of our old stomping grounds: “Ohmygod, he kissed me right there in front of the liquor store once!” “Waaaa! He told me ‘I love you’ for the first time at that bus stop!” What a mess. It took me months to bounce back to my perky self, and even longer not to growl at every Gemini I met. (Grrr…those two-faced sons of—)

“Now I wanna see ya’ll on your baddest behavior! Lend me some suga, I am your neighbor! Shake it, shake it…Shake it like a Polaroid picture!”

I hadn’t thought about the ex in forever, hadn’t had a need to. Time had cured my long ago broken heart until there was no longer a single flutter at the mention of his name. But right then, riding backseat with a cabbie who floored the yellow on Cesar Chavez as if Armageddon was one stop-light behind us, I realized one thing: I wasn’t nostalgic for the ex, nor was I heartbroken. I was actually sincerely and genuinely happy about it. If I hadn’t gotten my heart stomped on like some old recycled soda cans, I would’ve never met the ruca… Would’ve never kissed her that day on the 4^th of July six years ago, and thought to myself “this is the one.” Would’ve never had the chance to fall asleep spooning her soft hips every night, and wake up in those early ambiguous hours of morning only to reconnect again. Everything from my past has led me to where I am now: here. Con ella, la ruca.

“Heeeeey yaa! Hey ya!”

The cabbie turned left on Cortland and passed the coffee shop where we stumble out of bed and go to sometimes, then past the Stray Dog Bar, and finally pulled over to the side as the song faded out to the last Hey Ya!.

I over-tipped homeboy, handing him a five like I was a balla when a standard three bucks would’ve sufficed.
            “Thanks, man,” I waved.

“You take care,” he nodded.

I passed the smokers out front, still talking about the Giants game, and pushed open the door. Behind the pool table and behind the wall of the fireplace—where glitzy antique high-heeled shoes are nailed into it—was the crowd of my friends: drinks being raised in cheers and their first few rounds already toasting up inside them, all of them fuzzy and helplessly elated. “Sarah!” “Sara!” “Sarita!” they all called out to me.

I wanted to run but forced a cool strut over to them, where I distributed hugs and besos and saved a big smooch on the lips for the ruca for last.

“Ready to celebrate Pride weekend?” she asked, once I’d ordered my round.

“Hey ya!” I grinned, the silly, loving goof I am.

© Sarah C. Jimenez 2011, All Rights Reserved

Drunk-ass Chicks on BART

One of my pet peeves is when people don’t answer my direct question. You’d think I’d grown up with a drill sergeant of a dad or something, seriously. Yesterday at my bar, I asked some dude if he was over 21 and he said, “I have an I.D.” I repeated my question in the same tone. He said, “My birthday’s next week.” I wanted to pull my hair out. Really, what’s so hard about answering a simple yes or no question? Turns out it’s not always so easy to answer direct questions, and I got a taste of my medicine recently.

I was riding BART to work and torturing myself by reading Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, since I didn’t read it in 6^th grade like “everyone else did”—according to the ruca. I was on the last pages, concentrating very hard on not crying when Lennie is asking George about the rabbits while George has a gun in his hand. My silent torment was broken as four girls who looked like they’d barely turned 21 stumbled aboard—wasted—with the drunkest of the four plopping down next to me. She was easily three hundred pounds. Now I’m in no way a fat-a-phobic like most of America. In fact, I think most of America is disgustingly obsessed with the anorexic look, and I also think that trains, planes and BART make their seats too small to begin with anyway. (Plus, anyone who knows me knows the ruca's got hips like no one's business.) What bothered me about homegirl sitting next to me was that she spread herself completely out, opening her legs and thrusting me and my book and my lunchbox and uniform against the wall. Then she let her head roll back on the cushioned seat, facing me, and began to snore. Her alcohol rancid breath spewed through the air of the clammed up train—I half expected a handful of flies to be dazing lazily around the invisible cloud. And her friends? Sitting right next to her, taking pictures with their phones. The one with the shirt that said Nasty Girl schemed, “Wait till everyone sees this shit on facebook.”

I was appalled. Sure I’ve been dumb and drunk and 21 before so I couldn’t really judge, but I also couldn’t move: my legs and nose were pressed against the window, and my rosemary ham and swiss-cheese sandwich was smushing like a pancake. I only had two stops left, about four minutes, but her breath was making me nauseous. I snorted tiny breaths through the coolness of the window, but the reek still found a way to spiral to my nose. I tried breathing through my mouth, but I could still feel the rancidness spoil on my lips. Her friends were all laughing, just sitting there taking pictures as she began to drool. Jesus Christ, all I wanted was to finish my book! But no— this drunk-ass chick who’d probably just drank the bar dry at the Kilowatt was ruining my tragic good-cry ending! What about the rabbits, George? What about the rabbits?!

We stopped at Civic Center. I should’ve gotten up but I froze; just sat there doing nada as the train filled up with 9-5ers off work going back to East Bay. I planned my exit route since my stop was next: she’d have to wake up as soon as I tapped her. Then she’d get up and move for me. Easy. Least it should’ve been.

The doors closed. The seats of the train had all filled up and some of the suits and skirts with briefcases were left standing. I put my plan into action. I stood up, the first of everyone on the train to stand, and very politely tapped the drunk.

“Excuse me?” I said.  “I need to get off.”

She snorted. The three friends looked at me, bored.

“Umm,” I tapped her again, poking harder.  “Hello? Can you please get up? I have to get off.”

Nada. An entire mariachi band could’ve been serenading Mi Cielito Lindo for her and homegirl wouldn’t have batted an eye. I was getting worried. Her legs, white and bare in cut-off daisy dukes, were completely blocking any chance I had of squeezing by in front of her.

Desperately, I looked at her homegirls. “Your friend needs to move,” I snapped.

Nasty Girl looked at me, her hair highlighted with blocks of blonde and black. “Jessie,” she said, snapping her hot pink acrylic nails in her face before she gave her a little slap. “JESSIE!”

Zzzz-snort-zzzzz…

The train was approaching Powell, the screech slowing down.

The friend looked at me. “Just climb over her.”

What? Oh come on. I’m not the 21-year old borracha—how did I get sucked into their world? Still, I had no choice. The train was about to stop and pretty soon people would be flooding on and filling up. Fuming, I climbed over her, stretching out one long leg and swinging around her, completely awkward as my purse fell off my shoulder and onto her lap. I felt slimy and sordid as I pinched my fingers like claws to pick it up—except it slid on the sweat of her thighs and into the crack of her legs. I finally grabbed it as she slurred some kind of moan and the three friends cracked up hysterically, either at her or at me or at both of us while they snapped away on their phones.

I couldn’t hold back any longer. “You guys are some fucked up friends,” I hurled at them.

Blonde and black and skunky-haired, Nasty Girl glared up at me, her heavy-coated pink glossed lips looking like shiny puss on her mouth. “Who the fuck asked you?” she retorted.

And since I hate not answering a direct question, I fumbled, not having an answer as all the standing suits stared blankly at us.

I was stumped. Who had asked me?  Not one of those broads had asked for my opinion, not at all.

Seeing that they’d caught my weakness, all three friends laughed again as the train pulled to a stop, jerking us passengers slightly. There was already a mob of people impatiently waiting for us to get off so they could get on. I cut my losses, even though I hated the burn of humiliation for simply trying to school some 21-year olds with my 30-year old wisdom. The doors opened.

It wasn’t until people began shoving on and shoving off that my response came to me. I yelled like a crazy person as I got pushed like a fish swimming upstream against its school: “I don’t need to be asked, you girls need to be told!” I hollered, and made it out the train by seconds, the door almost snagging at my shoelace. I looked back, feeling quite proud of myself. From the windows, the friends were still laughing—as they held up the worn and torn copy of the book I’d somehow left behind.

The train’s engine roared loudly and pulled away, growing smaller in the tunnel until all that was left was its fading red light. “But what about the rabbits, George?” I squeaked weakly to myself.

And that, I did not have an answer for.

© Sarah C. Jimenez 2011, All Rights Reserved

Bizcocho

Back in the days when my Spanish was barely Spanglish, and the only Spanish I did know was from picking up random drunken words stumbling down Revolución in T.J., I had what you would call a “pocha moment.” I’d just moved to the city and was making $35 a shift on busy nights as a food runner with $750 rent (which by city standards is actually cheap). As broke and hungry as I was, I pimped myself out to the alpha chef behind the line, Julian, a handsome, arrogant Michuacano. Flirting mercilessly with him, I batted my lashes, giggled like a school girl and ate up my rewards later: tender roasted rack of lamb, shrimp pasta pomodoro, chicken marsala with garlic mash and creamed spinach. Hey, don’t judge. You would’ve busted the femme fatale role too if your broke-ass was at home eating corn tortillas with peanut-butter for the fourth day in a row. Once Julian left, the umbrella of protection I was shielded with ended, and Lucho, his quiet scornful nemesis took over.

Lucho made it clear that he wasn’t smitten by my charm. I’d been polite enough to him all those months, but hadn’t showered him with the same doting I had for Julian, a devoid that would not lift his resentment over me. One day, when I passed him the tenajas for the fries, he said “Thank you, bizcocho.”

Bizcocho…I’d heard that word before. It was a sweet bread you dipped in your coffee—like a biscotti. But why were the other cooks suddenly snickering? 

“What does that mean?” I demanded. “Es un sweet bread,” he shrugged innocently. “Because you sweet.”

Since I didn’t know any better, I took it for what it was.

One day, one of the new Latino room-service guys overheard Lucho calling me bizcocho across the line. Appalled, he pulled me aside. “Do you know what they’re calling you?”

“Sweet bread,” I answered matter-of-factly. “It’s cuz I’m sweet.”

He himself snickered, then whispered the meaning in my ear.

Well, there’s no direct translation, really. But slang-wise, the closest you can come up with is that the sweet bread symbolically means a woman’s…

“Mother FUCKER!” I roared, blasting into the kitchen and hurling a bowl of fries onto the floor. (I can be quite hot-headed at times, a trait that either works for me or against me.) “I know what that means now!”

Lucho just laughed. “It’s sweet bread,” he shrugged coolly. “Because you sweet, bizcocho.” The cooks were all on the floor, rolling. This is the entertainment people get when they live at work.

“Stop calling me that right now!”

“No,” he said plainly. “It’s your nick name.” He handed me a fresh bowl of fries to continue my work.

For weeks after, the name bizcocho trailed behind me everywhere. I didn’t want to squeal to my gabacho managers because they were hesitant to put a woman behind the line to begin with—expos are mostly a male dominated position. I wanted to prove them wrong and hold off long enough until I got the “experience” they wanted from me to be promoted to the floor serving. With servers whining over making a hundred bucks on slow nights, that was where the money was at. And no one—not even a punk cook—was going to stand in the way of my money flow.

My respect in the kitchen was at an all-time low. Every time I forced myself to go to work, I felt like Carrie at prom being incessantly ridiculed: “They’re all gonna laugh at you, they’re all gonna laugh at you.” And being that I was too proud to ask for food, I was also hungrier than half the city’s squandering pigeons.

Something had to give and finally the answer came, but timing was everything. I waited an entire six days for the opportune moment, then pounced like a patient bullfrog snapping at a fly when it approached. It was a Saturday night, the kitchen was packed, and all the cooks were standing around admiring Lucho’s new phone that had a camera. Big technology in those days.

“Let me take a picture of you, bizcocho,” he said.

I grinned to myself, setting out ramekins to dry. “Let’s do it…Anchovy.”

He stopped, looked up at me. A pause fell across the kitchen: no servers asking for re-fires, no food that had to be plated. Not one expo ticket printed on the sauté or pantry line, and not a single soup ladle stirred. The thousand actions that give life to a kitchen halted in those very exact seconds that Lucho and I sneered silently at each other: him full of pride and need for respect, me full of my own.

“What you call me?” he seethed.

“Oh, it’s your new nickname. Anchovy,” I repeated simply. “You know, like that disgusting salted dead fish they put on top of pizza. Cute, huh?”

Lucho’s face twisted and creased, spit flying from his mouth like he’d just warped into a rabid wolf. He had deep wide set Mayan eyes, indigeno looking, and a long ponytail that hung down his back. He was handsome, no doubt. But the defeated look that scorned his eyes now was anything but charming.

“Don’t call me that!”

“No,” I decided, enjoying the two minutes of torture that was almost equivalent to my entire month. “It’s your new nick name, Anchovy.”

The cooks were nudging each other hysterically now, “coño’s” flying left and right. “Anchovy!” they busted.

“Basta!” Lucho fired, bellowing.  

I glared back. I could be quite threatening at times, call it the wrath of a woman. “Fine, I’ll stop. But quit calling me bizcocho!”

He nodded. The cooks were still rolling at his feet. “Algo más?”

“Yes,” I declared. “I’m starving.”

He took a big gulp, probably of his pride. “Pollo o pescado?”

I got promoted to the floor eventually and Lucho moved on as well; the restaurant business is transient like that. The other day out of the blue, I happened to think of him and wondered if he ever thought of me too. I wondered if he ever silently scowled when his friends joke about ordering anchovies on their pizza—or better: If he ever sulks when he does eat a bizcocho, wondering why its sweetness is gone as he dunks it into his coffee.

© Sarah C. Jimenez 2011, All Rights Reserved

Split Pea Soup & Chicharrón

I should’ve been writing because writers write—even when they have writer’s block or just plain laziness block—they write something. So was I? Nope, not at all. I spent my entire afternoon flipping through pages of an astrology book, fascinated, skeptical, and completely wasting time.

This is what I concluded: I’m a Sagittarius sun, Libra moon, and Scorpio rising. Sag’s are notorious for being infected with a chronic disease called Foot-in-the-Mouth syndrome, leading me to say mindless shit like: “Damn those pants make your ass look huge!” Or “Have you ever noticed how bad your breath stinks after eating curry?” (Hmm…and I’d always just considered myself honest.) Luckily, my Libra-ness can charm my way out of my messes while my Scorpio is supposed to make me silent and cool…Yes, I confess that aside doing laundry, this is how I spent my day.

I picked up the ruca from work later and we got home to find our neighbor blocking our driveway—again. And not by a hair or a couple lousy inches, but literally half of his black SUV’s ass rearing into our garage. The ruca and I looked at each other through clenched teeth—it was the second time this week. She had to run an errand and would be back in an hour. “If his ass ain’t moved by the time we get back, shit’s gonna hit the fan.”

“My Sag wants to get fired up and kick his ass, my Libra wants to politely ask him to move, and my Scorpio wants to flatten all his tires in the middle of the night,” I babbled.

She looked at me as if I was crazy.  “What?”

“Nothing,” I shook my head. “Can you hide my astrology when you get home?”

I had an hour to cook dinner and to think about how I would deal with the situation. I hate confrontation. Awhile back, I agonized for days over how to tell a co-worker she’d hurt my feelings by calling me “too sensitive.” (Once I realized the irony of it though, I had a shot of whiskey and drank it off.) Seriously though, I’d rather be taking out the garbage or scrubbing the toilet than dancing around the inevitable awkwardness of, “Uh…we need to talk.” I wondered how I’d cower today as I set the preparations out for dinner.

Now anytime I cook, I pour energy into what I am making and depending how I feel at the moment, it tends to parallel my emotion—very like water for chocolate-ish. If I’m feeling romantic, my spicy shrimp linguini is exquisitely seductive. If I’m sad or doting on a memory, my picadillo is woefully intense. (Once I made the mistake of cooking veggie burgers while arguing, and both me and the ruca got the runs later.) I was still driving myself astrologically neurotic, but was feeling quite powerful as I rehearsed things I would say to our neighbor when the confrontation would go down.

I sautéed garlic and onions and added chiles, oregano and cumin seeds. I would tell our fellow neighbor—a huge towering Samoan man that makes Giants’ Pablo Sandoval look petite—that he had no right to block our driveway. “We’re neighbors and shouldn’t have to ask you to give back what is rightfully ours.” Or: “We pay a lot of money for the garage, and would appreciate being able to park there without asking you to move all the time.” Or: “Dude, seriously? Next time your ass is gettin’ towed.”

Oh, the confrontation!  The butterflies in my stomach that came from sticking up for myself!  Could I do it? Yes! My Sag told my scaredy-cat Libra. Just be blunt and out with the truth! Don’t even think about it so much, I coached myself. I rinsed the green peas and added them to the broth of sautéed onions and garlic, then shredded chunks of chicharrón so the smoky flavor of pork would melt together with the peas. I’m a 30 year old woman, I’ve dealt with harder things in life than how to tell a pesky neighbor to move his stupid car, I concluded, and cut up chunks of potatoes and carrots to toss in the boiling pot.

An hour passed. The spicy smell of peas and grasa tickled the buds of my mouth as I set the comal for tortillas. The ruca would be home any minute.

The peas had softened. The chicharrón had shredded. The carrots and peas added the perfect burst of texture. My soup was a strengthening soup and would give me the power I needed to take charge, to diplomatically “go off”—and to not be such a fucking wuss for god sakes. 

Outside, the ruca honked.

I ran to the door. Her eyebrows were raised, frustrated that the SUV big enough to transport an entire football team was still there. I waved a reassuring hand at her. “I got this.”

Marching upstairs, an entire monologue memorized in my head—“Rightfully ours…our space…appreciate it if…shouldn’t have to ask”—his wife answered the door. She seemed to open it wider for me, as if inviting me in for the first time.

“Uh…parked in our driveway,” I mumbled. 

She called out to her husband as I fled back downstairs to hide my cowardice. Still, I was not giving up. I would stand tall, tell him exactly how I felt. Get everything off my chest and give him a piece of my mind. I made the strengthening soup, damnit!

The neighbor hobbled out the door and down the stairs, an obvious limp dragging at his leg. “Hey there!” he called out, friendly as old chums at a Sunday picnic. “Sorry ‘bout the car!” he said, and got into the SUV.

Sag, Libra, Scorpio pushover…none of it mattered. Because over the roar of his engine, the only thing one could hear that came out of me was a pathetic croak: “It’s alright.”

*

The ruca tasted the soup.

“Whaddayou think?” I asked her, like I always ask do when I’m extra proud of something.

She rolled her eyes to the back of her head, a mind numbing face to show she approved. “It’s delicious,” she said, dipping her tortilla in it. “Absolutely phenomenal.”

I tasted it myself. It was spicy, strong, a smoky flavor of grasa and a reminiscent breath of cumin. It was my powerful soup—even if I didn’t always feel that way myself. Sure, there are things about me I wish I could change. But even if I could, would I really want to? If I got rid of all the things about myself that drive me nuts—my wussiness, my foot in the mouth-ness, my Sag or Libra-ness or Sarah-ness or whatever you want to call it—would I be here right now, tasting this cathartic and mind blowing soup?

“Should I have made it spicier?” I asked.

“No. It’s perfect as it is.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, slurping down the next spoonful.  “I guess it is.”

© Sarah C. Jimenez 2011, All Rights Reserved