Aileen Maria

I love how it came out!

http://vimeo.com/13967000

Here's a good excuse to shop. Amnesty International is having a sale on their site and they have some really nice things. These make great gifts for ourselves and others so lets participate in some guilt free spedning. I posted my favorites below.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/emails/O1008O01.html

I’m lookin for a synonym for “money laundering” for a translation I'm working on and instead I find that Wiki actually gives advice on how to do it more effectively: “To avoid suspicion, shell companies should deal directly with the public, perform some service (not provide physical goods), and have a business that reasonably would accept cash as a matter of course. Dealing directly with the public in cash gives a plausible reason for not having a record of customers.”

SMH, not exactly what I was looking for Wiki but thanks for lookin out.

For some reason I cant embed things but here is a link to video of Alisa talking about why Dirty Social Girls Club movie is not being made by Hollywood. I think its so crazy that the A-list actresses claim they were advised against playing Latinas because it ruined JLO's career. I didnt realize JLo's career had ever been ruined but from what I know El Cantante did poorly because people thought badly of the acting or they said there was no character development, not because Jlo was playing a Latina. One of my favorite actresses, America Ferrer has played a Latina many times and I think her career is blossoming. Everyone makes movies that don't do so well, even my crush and one of my fave actors Will Smith. Well okay, everyone but Leonardo Dicaprio. His movies ALWAYS do well.

I love how she adds:

"Unless you're writing big blockbuster testosterone guy movies or movies about geeky ugly guys that get the girl," SMH aint it the truth. Why dont they ever show geeky ugly girls getting de papasito? Its all so catered to men!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkqEJOYxXe4&feature=related

 That being said, my girl made a FB page for those of us who want the movie and I KNOW there is a lot of us out there so add it please:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-want-The-Dirty-Girls-Social-Club-Movie-or-TV-Show/107775162609152?ref=mf

Some pictures from my trip to Aruba. The beaches are beautiful and the sand is really soft. There were a lot of little fishes in the water that were bold enough to approach us but they didnt come out in the pictures. A lot of people speak both Spanish and English as well as the official language, Dutch and their native language, Papimiento so it's easy to communicate. You could even see Venezuela from the island! It was a great experience and I recommend it as a vacation spot to everyone.

"Sometimes, the universe has already given you what you need. It's just up to you to recognize it."
Lauren in Dirty Girls On Top by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez 

I just finished reading "Dirty Girls on Top", the sequel to The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. Well the book made me laugh out loud and tear up just like the first book and my favorite character, Lauren cracked me up the most before she hits a very sad moment. The only thing thing that I started to get annoyed at was the way the characters stereotype people of other backgrounds but I guess that's the point right? They're supposed to be flawed like regular people. At first, I thought Rebecca's British husband was portrayed as an open minded perfectly calm gentleman while the characters continuously described Americans as narrow minded and I have known enough non-americans to learn that they also come in all varieties, narrow minded, unfriendly and the opposite of calm. But then there is some great character development when Lauren realizes that she has been misjudging her white american co-workers all along. She acknowledges that she was too busy putting up walls to look past their differences.

There is some steamy dating and disappointment with Lauren's love interest, which broke my heart as much as it did Lauren's because her boyfriend reminded me of mine, sans the drug dealing past. The wonderful thing about the Dirty Girls books is that you can probably relate to one thing about each character and shake your head at them when they make bad choices like you would with your real girlfriends. I relate to Elizabeth a lot because we are both from the coast of Colombia and poetic but I relate to Lauren even more because I am loud, sometimes very full of anger and not afraid to show my emotions. I also love how the women have been so much older than me since I started reading the books because they have always given me something to look forward to. Can you imagine if I was reading teen books only (cough cough Twilight) instead of Dirty Girls Social Club? I would be one of those pathetic girls my age that thought she was over the hill just because she's no longer in her teens. Not that I dont like reading teen books every now and then. I just think you need to have variety in there so you can stay young at heart AND look forward to growing up.

Some pictures from the last weekend of the play. We had a nice cast party with good food and cake too!

This is the view from where I spent my fourth of July. I was chillin inside an air conitioned apartment in Manhattan sippin champagne. OK I made up de champagne part but de rest is true.  

I am watching an interview with one of the fantasy writers I sometimes read, Laurell K. Hamilton and she said something about memory being a funny thing. She said if a crime was staged, everyone in a room witnessing it would not be able to accurately describe the criminal and would describe different hair colors etc.. . Hmmm... I have heard this before and I wonder if this is really due to memory and not due to perspective. For example to some people I am "really really" skinny while to modeling agencies I am on the curvy side. So if a modeling agent was present with other people some would describe me as a very skinny person because they are mostly around average sized people while an agent would say I was curvy because of what they are accostumed to. Neither of these has a bad memory just a different perspective. Similarly I have argued haircolors with people. Dark brown hair looks black to most, to me it looks dark brown and only jet black hair is black. Strawberry blonde hair is described as red while to me only really red hair is red. We see things differntly and we remember them as we see them so is it possible our persepective affects our description not a bad memory?

Speaking of memory, I had a funny dream that messed with mine a while back. The dream took place three years ago so it was a memory in the dream world. In it I was at work and saw in the Village Voice that Mos Def (my favorite rapper) was doing a signing that day. I went to the signing right after work, unprepared because I had found out about it at the last minute. So when I get there all I have is the copy of the village voice and everyone looks at me like I'm pathetic. Intimidated by all these "good fans" I slip out of the room and leave. I kick myself for being so cowardly. When I woke up I actually thought this had really happened and kept asking myself, "how could you do that? You should have talked to him." I beat myself up for twenty minutes and spent another forty trying to figure out if it was a real memory or not. Finally later in the day I realized that there was no way it had ever happened and I couldn't believe the dream had messed with my sense of reality so much. Yeah, memory really is a funny thing.