1. My great-grandpa’s death, when I was in 1st grade, was a pivotal moment in my life. Ever since that day I’ve though extensively about my own death and the deaths of those around me. That funeral taught me so much about what an extended family and a caring community can mean. That night was also the first time I can remember that I lectured someone on the evils of littering and polluting the environment. I imagined abandoned plastic trash bags dissolving into the air and spreading their evil in the night sky. My great-grandpa was buried like a Totonac, with a gourd full of water stoppered with a corn husk so he wouldn’t get thirsty on the way to the afterlife.
2. I love my sister. When she was born, I was worried about her having spina bifida like me. When my dad came and told us she’d been born healthy I started worrying about whether I’d pick the right baby in the viewing room where all the newborns are lined up in rows. I thought that if I got it wrong I’d never forgive myself. I picked the fat, red-faced, really hairy one, and it was her. I was so relieved I’d gotten it right, I still think about it.
3. I read a lot. Once when I was a little kid, I brought my great-grandma one of my books, it was about fossils. I wanted her to read it with me, but she told me she’d rather sit and let me tell her all about it. I pretty much explained everything anyone will ever know about geology right then, and I was so proud. Years later I found out she’d never learned to read. I still read a lot, and I still remember that my great-grandma wore one long braid, her hair half perfectly black and half dirty gray, running down her back.
4. I realized I was queer pretty early on. I came out in 7th grade to a few friends and pretty soon the entire Hedrick Middle School student body knew I was the only gay kid in the world. It was an incredible experience and very liberating. Now everyone knows that I like boys, girls, trans kids, and everyone else. When my family found out I had a horrible time but it got better. Now I just get awkward attempts to reassure me that “everyone loves me and supports me no matter who I am,” but no one ever mentions that I like it up the butt, etc. I also can’t tell if people hit on me or find me attractive, so my disgusting sexual depravity has come to naught.
5. I used to make up languages. I would look up grammar terms and possible sounds made by the human mouth, and scribble for hours in my notebooks, diagramming vowel systems, personal pronouns, grammatical declensions, and making long lists of nouns and sample sentences. I would always quit before getting anywhere and start a new one, so I had a stack of notebooks full of tables and lists that eventually stopped making sense even to me. Up to today, I’ve only met and befriended one person who also had this extremely fun obsession, but I’ve never seen him in real life. Whenever I have some free time, I still sit down with some paper and start to doodle vowel harmony systems and tenuis-lenis consonant change rules. I’m studying Linguistics.
6. When I walk, I make up rules for what I can step on and what I have to avoid. Sometimes it’s just avoiding the breaks in the sidewalk, but often it involves drawing imaginary lines out of corners and angles on the floor, or picturing a grid on the ground and only stepping on alternate spaces diagonal from each other. Because of this, sometimes I lag behind the people I’m with or risk slipping on ice, etc. I know many people my age still do it, but I don’t know how many of them imagine that the lines they’re avoiding are laser beams. On the street, I find myself thinking, “I don’t want my feet blown off.”
7. Crying makes me feel amazing. Being very sad or happy and crying big, fat, sobbing tears and tasting the saltiness is one of the best things that can happen to me, and I always feel really good afterwards. I cry very rarely. The last time I did, it was in the middle of campus while I spoke into a microphone. I wasn’t embarrassed, but it was still nice to have people come and hug me afterwards. Those few tears made me content but exhausted for the rest of the day.
8. I try to call out people’s bullshit, especially my close friends’. When they’re being general douchebags or just jerky, I’ll usually make an effort to tell them how I feel. I also try to apologize and make improvements when people call out my bullshit. I can be an unbelievably terrible person and say devastatingly hurtful things when I’m angry. Sometimes I know I’ve done something horribly wrong and unfair, and it makes my chest burn. I’ve found that if I recognize my mistake and apologize immediately after being called out, many people who don’t know me that well actually think I’m being sarcastic. It’s a strange sensation, realizing that people don’t believe you.
9. When I was little I wanted to be an opera singer. I would listen to Classical music and sing made-up songs in the living room. I told this to my parents and my mom told me I could do anything I wanted. Later on, I wanted to be a criminal. I eventually settled for an opera-singing life of crime. Looking at the progress I’ve made, I don’t think I’m doing too badly.
10. I have been, am, and will be cripplingly awkward for my entire life. I’ve learned to enjoy it, and I feel like my painful sense of discomfort and constant crushing self-awareness has actually earned me a few friends, or at least the benevolent sympathy of a few people. One time, on the subway, I was so awkward it was affecting me physically. I had to sit down and pretty much retreat into a shell of incredible awkwardness for the entire ride. While it can be really horrible, I enjoy the familiar feeling of insecurity welling up in my chest and filling my mind with increasingly horrible scenarios of how I’m certain to ruin the universe for everybody, or at least trip on something.
11. At any time, I’m likely to have two or three running crushes on people. Either I’m mildly infatuated with, very attracted to, or incredibly wanting to be friends with someone. Often it’s all three, some other kind of crush, or variations thereof. I think the idea that you can only feel love or attraction for one person at a time is ridiculous, boring, and barning my scene. I’m glad that I’m with someone who knows that and has enough sense to nurture the emotions that arise among people. People are sometimes really wonderful.
12. I like to write. My mom’s been working on a novel for years now, and I take a lot after her. I like my voice and I think I have pretty good ideas. But generally, I entertain myself by coming up with clever titles for the novels I would write and imagining what they would be about. Sometimes I even think about the critiques they would receive. I’ve also tried to write a screenplay and poetry, but generally I just like to put words together. My mom’s never managed to finish her novel, but seeing her write is like watching a waterfall.
13. I like to put things in my mouth. Freud is stupid, but I think I never got past the oral stage. I still take random things of interesting shapes or textures and pop them in my mouth, sometimes watching to make sure no one sees me. It happens a lot that I’ll see something and immediately think about feeling it with my mouth, even if it’s impossible. For this and a couple of other reasons, I have a surprisingly adept tongue.
14. I don’t believe in God but I still consider myself a ridiculously religious person. Although I think the idea of some beardy guy running around creating shit is preposterous, I would still call myself a Catholic and even a Muslim a lot more often than I do. Buddhism is pretty cool, and I feel particularly close to Mesoamerican polytheism, Totonac religion, and folk Catholicism. For a variety of reasons, people who are religious in a more orthodox Christian or Muslim way tend to hate my views. I love the Virgin Mary, Kali, Fatimah, and Natsi’itni. I worship my ancestors, the river and mountain spirits including Zapata, and Ali is the leader of the believers, among other things.
15. I really do think that a new world is possible, etc. The thing that convinces me that life doesn’t have to be fucked over for the sake of tall buildings or hedge funds is having friends. I don’t believe there’ll ever be a time after the revolution, and I don’t think that I have any super special answers on how to end suffering or some similar self-serving bullshit. All I know is that I have friends, I’ve picked a side, and I want my sister to live in a better world. I think I’ve been a radical since around 3rd grade. I had a book about the environment where this superhero with an Earth globe for a head went around teaching kids about environmental destruction and oppression. I remember seeing pictures of fat capitalists and imperialists looming over tractors destroying a forest and its people. I think that might have been when I picked a side.
16. There are certain words, like “February,” that I still struggle to pronounce. I used to have a pretty thick accent when I first moved to the U.S. and it never fully went away. People now ask me if I speak Spanish, and sometimes they’re surprised that English is my second language. It’s nice to know I’ve learned to speak it well, but I still remember when I was just beginning to learn it and I couldn’t spell “green.” My general lack of an accent, except when naming the second month of the year, or in a few other instances, helps me pass. Now, the trouble I have is that, because I get all my Spanish from literature, newspapers, and my close family, I speak in what’s apparently a really formal register. I haven’t been back to Mexico in years, and there are times when I just want o run south and go back home. I want to go back to the dusty streets full of dogs, and keep going until I get to the mountains where it’s always raining. Although people might look at me funny here and there because of how I speak, I could go to the mountains and sit around quietly, not talking. It’s taken me many years to be really open about being an immigrant and what that means. I still struggle with it.
17. I shower every two days, partially because I’m lazy, and partially because I have very special hair that goes crazy if I wash it too often. I’ve been in New York for almost two years now, and I have still not had a hair cut in the city. My hair used to be dark brown like my eyes, but then it turned black. When I think of showering daily, it seems like a waste. Not only is it a completely unnecessary use of water, soap, and time, but I also really like the warm, musky smell of normal people. I don’t like too much make up on faces, completely dyed hair, or artificial smells. I like to grow out my facial hair- I think it’s goofy.
18. I have spina bifida, which means I have a hole in my spine. When I was born I had to have major surgery to tuck my spinal cord and a bunch of nerves back into my body. I have a long scar running up my lower back, and you can still feel the hole. I was lucky to not have hydrocephaly or complications after my surgery. When I was a baby I didn’t really move my legs, and there was a possibility I wouldn’t be able to walk, control bodily functions, or that I might have severe brain damage from hydrocephaly. I eventually learned to walk, and I was lucky to not have complications after my surgery. I didn’t have any brain damage, but I still have a weird back and of course, I’ll always have spina bifida. I’ve met a couple of people who also have it, and they were both in wheelchairs. It’s strange for me to think about where I fall between disabled and able-bodied. My spine has always been lurking around behind me, get it? Once I was at a show, and I went into a mosh pit. Someone kneed me in the back, and I fell to the ground. I couldn’t stand up, and I couldn’t walk. For the next week or so, I had shooting, electric pain running down my legs. I can walk.
19. Sometimes I pick a little bit of snow from the tops of bushes and eat it. The first time I saw snow was in New York, last year. Before, I’d only lived in semi-tropical coastal areas, the north Mexican desert, and the Texas plains. I had seen big rocks of hail and ice everywhere, mist so thick you could feel it as it came down over you, and dust devils on the side of the road. Now I know the magic of inches and inches of snow getting into your miserably unsuitable shoes and soaking your socks. Climatologically speaking, I think I’ve lived a good life.
20. I look exactly like my dad did at his age. I recently saw a picture of him as a young kid, and there was a moment when I started trying to remember when that picture had been taken, because I thought it was me sitting there, legs crossed, messy haired, and holding a guitar. Now I have a long, fruitful future of looking exactly like my father ahead of me. I’m a little bit shorter than he is, and everyone says I have prettier hands. I like my hands, and I’m glad I’m short, it’s a fitting height for Totonac folk. My dad says that height is the distance from the top of your head up to heaven.
21. I’m astoundingly bad at team sports. I suck at soccer, and I still don’t really know how to play any other game. I’m naturally un-athletic, and the big hole in my back didn’t really help things. I still go crazy around World Cup time, and I still have a team- las Chivas, out of respect for family, tradition, and sacred things. I like to swim, which bores well for the Swim Test required for graduation from Columbia. I also did Brazilian Jui-Jitsu for a few years, and I did surprisingly well. However, I think my real calling is clearly in the realm of Go, Risk, and when the fancy strikes, Monopoly. Mancala is also forever my game.
23. I have a small, small group of extremely close friends. I’m still surprised that I’ve managed to gather any at all, since I have a hard time making friends. I’m glad to have them. More and more, I have really fantastic and incredibly intimate conversations with a few of them. I’ve drifted apart from a few old friends, while growing closer to some others I had no idea I’d stay in touch with. When I meet new people I like in college, I feel a little frantic. I worry that with my slowness at making friends, I won’t have time to properly get to know them before we graduate and the world implodes. Also recently I’ve realized I’m making a handful of younger friends, which is really amazing. I can finally be that lecherous old college friend that was so mysterious in my high school days.
24. I insist my childhood will never end. I have good reason to believe this. When I was younger, I had a brief affair during which I wanted nothing more than to get my very own Russian nesting dolls. This was, of course, on account of having recently watched Toy Story and having my mind appropriately blown. For a few weeks, I tried to think of every possible way to get Russian nesting dolls. I think I came reasonably close to getting a set, but they never quite materialized. Years later, I was introduced to a great video of people playing theremins made out of Russian nesting dolls. The third Toy Story movie will come out someday soon, and I’ll be there waiting with candy in hand. This is why I declare the theremin to be quite possibly the most science fiction musical instrument, and why I’ll always be a child.
25. I like to eat mangoes, figs, and pomegranates. Eating a mango is a craft that involves shoving as much fruit into your mouth as possible while at the same time getting as much of it smeared all over your face, hands, and body as possible. Whenever I eat one I insist on picking at the irrationally large and flat seed in the middle. I eat figs and pomegranates because my mom’s hometown was settled largely by New Christians and crypto-Jews who were expelled from Spain. These Sephardim brought with them the traditional fruit bearing trees they’d carried all the way from the Middle East, the fig and the pomegranate. Northern Mexico turned out to be surprisingly similar to this ancestral home, so the two trees prospered and made a new life for themselves in every backyard plot, including my grandparents’. Hundreds of years later, I grew up with a bit of Jewish blood in my veins and a bag of figs on the table of my grandparents’ dining room, picked by my grandpa whenever I came to visit. Once, I did really well on the PSAT and my Pre-Calculus teacher heard about it. The next day she brought me a big fat pomegranate from her garden as a present and congratulations. I took that pomegranate around to my classes and showed it off, expertly peeling the hard shell and picking out the juicy kernels and passing them around. It’s nice to hold such fruit in your hands, and it’s nice to eat it like an old acquaintance.
