it's girlscout cookie time

they ran out of thin mints & samoas!
why do the other cookies even exist?

paging veronica mars

the olympics last night were not as exciting as they had been night's before. therefore, i decided i should go to bed a bit earlier than usual. i laid in bed silently for what felt like hours. something was plaguing me. i couldn't figure it out. my bills were paid, my documents were saved, what was it? i turned my laptop back on, but nothing. then, like divine intervention, a name popped in my head.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas

 if you have recently seen/heard of this young man please contact bonnquisha.

what happened to JTT!?

long before zac efron and robert pattinson, there was jonathan taylor thomas aka JTT. he was the dreamy middle child on home improvement, tom sawyer, the voice of young simba. he was on the cover of teen beat and on the walls of young girl's and probably some boy's bedrooms across the country. (but not on mine, pamela wouldn't let me)

few people know about my torrid love affair with for JTT. circa 1995-1996, i was in love with JTT. it was beyond a crush, i cried when my friends mike and josh stole and drew devil horns and a mustache on a pocket size picture of the cast of home improvement that i used to carry with me. i cried when i heard the rumor that he was dating topanga. i even tried to convince my mom we should move to miami when my aunts teased me that he moved down there. it may have been one-sided, but it was totally love. however, it all ended when i discovered that he wasn't the singing voice of young simba in the lion king. i felt cheated, i felt betrayed.

so, fast forward to 2010 and there i was, thinking about what happened to my tween love. i began searching on google and imdb. all of a sudden, it's 1:30 am, i'm drinking a low budget hot toddy (hot lemonade & scotch), desperately trying to piece together where JTT is. sadly, after suspicious looking articles and posts dated 2007, i gave up. i determined this is a case for professionals, specifically veronica mars, which was one of his last imdb credits. 

i did stumble upon these rumors: 

-he  graduated from columbia with a ba in 2009

-he  lives in canada with his girlfriend

-he  is trying for a comeback

-he  is gay

the only thing that can be confirmed is that he is still under 5'6' and will always be the first love of my life. 

nothing is immune to obesity

obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the united states. NO ONE is immune. not even snowmen.

 

my neighbor made the snowman, not me. 

  

he is so fat he can't wear pants.

snowman obesity has reached pandemic levels in the washington, dc area. every snowstorm the snowmen get fatter and fatter. a cure is not expected for a few more days. if your snowman or snow-woman is obese, encourage it to melt away with hot water and blow dryers.

halfblacktina in a check one world

well, it's black history month and in the midst of debates about its importance and relevance, i came across some bloggers discussing the inclusion of afrolatinos, latinegros, or blacktinos in black history month. this reminded me that i am way overdue writing about my own racial identity. as i noted in the previous post, i don't really have a goal with this other than writing this out for myself or anyone who is curious. back in september i wrote about being half-white. when filling out forms that allow me to check more than one box, i will check the white box, but i don't really identify as a white person. i have tried but for a multitude of reasons, it is not a part of my identity.

so, now it's time to write about being half-blacktina.

a reason why i never had a problem embracing my latin side was because of my schooling. this is ironic since it's one of the main reasons i distanced myself from any sort of white identity. it was a combination of my forms already being bubbled in as hispanic/latino and being ridiculed by some  peers at a young age.

if you've read my blog, you know that my mother is a huge influence in my life. when i was little, people would call me "pamelita". some of my earliest memories are of all the time i spent running around the newsroom, listening to people get into arguments in spanish, rearranging the news articles on the board, and being told that fidel castro is an evil bastard. i was constantly surrounded by latinos and latin culture.  so it's only natural that i gravitated more towards my latin side. even with my inability to speak spanish, i never felt rejected by latinos. 

but my mom isn't just a latina, she's a blacktina. now, not all blacktinos consider themselves black. it really depends on their environment and family. the majority of my mom's brothers and sisters do not consider themselves black. despite having married the blackest man she could find, my grandmother constantly told my mom she was too dark. i don't blame my abuela, there is still underlying racism within the latino community.

however, pamela grew up with her panamanian grandmother and her jamaican grandfather in panama and brooklyn. she went through bed-sty to go to school and her childhood best friends were jamaican. her upbringing allowed her to identify as a blacktina woman rather than just latina. now, you may think, is there really a difference? not always, but since my mom was a journalist when i was younger, she worked for stations that were geared towards either latinos or blacks. she has no qualms with being considered a black woman and therefore neither do i.

while i appear more ethnically ambiguous than anything, i have always felt more comfortable discussing my afrolatina/blacktina roots.  this may have been confusing for some, it wasn't always so clear for me. but, after 22 years, i have figured out who i am in regards to being a multi-racial/multi-cultural female. i have a racial and ethnic identity i fully accept and embrace and i am finally able to check more than one box on official forms.


that's all for now. 

 

the inefficient detective, age 4. if you've never met her she looks EXACTLY the same.  

 

face face face give me face beauty face

in case you've never read my profile info...i LOVE drag queens.

i remember the first time i discovered what a drag queen was when watching to wong foo, thanks for everything, julie newmar. i was still a kid, so i didn't fully understand it but i knew they were fabulous. since then i have seen pretty much every mainstream movie about drag queens. however, it wasn't until i watched paris is burning during my junior year in college that i really appreciated the art form behind it. in summary, paris is burning is a documentary about the ball culture  in new york city in the late 1980s. this is where walk-offs and voguing really started off. the film showed me that it takes more than a wig and some heels to make a drag queen. it really is an art form. i am always transfixed watching the transformations from man to queen. it requires talent (as well as uniqueness, nerve, charisma...thanks rupaul) to become these larger than life personas. i do find it a bit odd when people (including some themselves) refer to drag queens as female impersonators. i mean, maybe i don't get out enough, but i have never met a woman quite like a drag queen.

i am so happy i can get my weekly fix now that rupaul's drag race has started up again. i officially got the inefficient detective hooked. now every monday i will rejoice as two queens LIPSYNCH FOR THEIR LIFE!

and in the words of rupaul: "Remember, if you can't love yourself, how'n the hell you goin' love somebody else? Can I get an Amen up in here?"