Side Project: PARA MORIR NACIMOS

This is a side project I am working on with Bearded Man for his blog PARA MORIR NACIMOS. We will have t-shirts and stickers for sale soon. We want to show positive and real imagery during confusing times like these. 

Love it or hate it, Death is coming for you.

PARA MORIR NACIMOS is not obsessed with the morbid. Death is a natural process we must all go through. We are born to die. But we should not fear Death, we should welcome it. If we fear Death, we fear life. We fear to live our lives the way we want, to find happiness in the smallest things, to make light of big problems. 

PARA MORIR NACIMOS is a positive message. We believe in: living life to your heart's desires, welcoming Death as a natural process, loyalty til death, and of course, supporting your family, supporting your friends, and supporting what you believe in.

Here are some things we have in store in the coming future.

Papa wanted me to play the accordion, I wanted to play guitar and I never did

I don't regret too many things in life, but one thing that does crush my heart at times is how I never learned how to play an instrument. Clarinet in the fifth grade does not count! My dad always wanted his daughters to play music, an all-sisters Mexican regional band, if you will. He said I would play accordion, one would play drums, and another would play guitar. Accordion?! No way! I said. I wanted to play guitar. LOUD guitar. No joke, I said loud guitar. But when it came down to it, I just couldn't muster up the courage to learn how to play guitar. I was too scared of being bad at it, not having any musical talent, just...negative thinking all around. So I never did it. And on days that I'm feeling blue, I always go back to "why didn't I ever learn how to play guitar like I always wanted to?"
Here I am 10 years later after first wanting to play guitar...still wanting. And I would've kept longing to learn had it not been for Bearded Man going out and buying a guitar so the both of us could learn together. Because it's never too late to do something you want (cheesy alert). But it's so true! If it wasn't there wouldn't be any 80 year old grandmas receiving their phDs or some shit. You gotta do what you want to do sooner or later. Sometimes the case is later.

Epiphone Les Paul

All babies grow up sooner or later

I finally got around to getting new bars for my baby.

Before:

A nice crotch shot for all of you.

Drop bars just didn't suit my baby and it was painful for my hands.

After:

After the transformation, Bearded Man and I went riding around all over Oakland and Berkeley, ran into a few friends, drank a few beers, listened to music, and enjoyed the warm October weather.

I love this man.

And I really like Hamm's. Here's to my baby growing up.

Old ladies

This will be the only post in which I mention work, and the only reason why I'll talk about it now is because it partly pertains to the story about me and my interesting interactions with old ladies.
The non-smokers in the billing department go on walks around 4 o'clock, because after 7 hours of dealing with flaky doctors and even flakier health insurance companies, a nice long walk around the block really does relax you. Besides lunch, it's the part of my workday that I look forward to the most. Today we took our usual route when we see an old lady with her dog, walking in our direction---and in slow motion, we saw her trip and fall but I CAUGHT HER!!! And there I was, on my afternoon walk with the non-smokers, holding an old lady in my arms.
This is not the first time this happens to me, I always seem to be at the right place, the right time when an old lady just trips and falls and I catch her. I'm not here to pat myself on the back, or give myself a hi-five for helping old ladies, I'd like to figure out why this happens.
Maybe this happens to me because interactions with both my grandmothers is nonexistent (one of them died at a very young age and the other, well, let's just say that she and I have a very hard time trying to see eye to eye), and so by helping these ladies I'm getting the grandmotherly interactions I've always wanted and this is the way it happens.
Or! What if these women helped an old lady who fell in their past and now I'm helping them, and one day some young woman is going to help me when I fall and it all comes full circle?
Whatever it is, I'm really glad that the old lady I caught today didn't get hurt and she's okay.

Never Too Old

NOTE: This video is by samstryke17 and from April 2011

I'm starting to feel old when I go to shows. I remember not that long ago, I was always near the front of the stage, but now I find myself inching my way to the back to escape the many windmills and kicks. Last night we went to see Sabertooth Zombie at Gilman and it's always at Gilman that I find myself thinking "am I too old for this shit?" and "will I still be coming to shows at Gilman when I'm even older?" The answers are no and yes. As long as there's good music and people that still want to put on shows and folks who enjoy going to shows, then it's still a worthwhile past time. I'm not going to be partaking in the circle pit anymore, but when a band plays a song that is worth jumping into the pit, then I'm sure as hell going to jump in it. You're never too old to rock out. So what if I got a cramp afterward? So what if I feel sore the next day? I'm not too old for this shit.

Check out Sabertooth Zombie, they're an awesome band with a great sense of humor and never boring at all.