Blank Slate

I don't know about you, but I wish I could get a blank slate. I've messed up so many times. Although I do not regret getting my Bachelor's in English, I do regret taking so long to get it and letting myself become dependent on my dysfunctional family. I lost a lot this year and while my birthday is only 6 days away, it doesn't feel like a birthday. I don't want to celebrate it. I don't even want to make a wish. You know when you were a kid and you thought if you wished hard enough, all your dreams will come true? Well I wished all the time and none of my dreams came true. If by some chance they ever did, it was through blood, sweat, and tears, not some magical fairy with blue wings.

Elmo is puppet-ed by a gay, black man, who although seems nice enough, is not a red, happy alien from outer space. He is just a regular man living his life and apparently getting accused of statutory rape? Ahh Elmo you have fallen down and kept get up eh? I'm sure he could use a blank slate right about now. We all could. America isn't exactly a place of sunshine and happy drops. The only happy drops seem to come from crappy fast food, weed, and $14 movie tickets. sorry guys, the drugs from the move "Looper" aren't out yet. All that's out is my regret and my shame and pretty much all the fun stuff that comes from growing up and realizing the world is a hard and tough place.

Sometimes I wish I could just run. Like Forest Gump I would run day in and day out and just keep running until I don't feel like it anymore. Too bad I have a bum knee. Too bad I have no science or math degree to calculate how far I could run. Too bad I forgot what exactly I was going to write about. I wish I could see you blonde haired boy with a pretty smile. You are my sole reason for existence. Tom, I know how you feel buddy, we are but a wisp of hot air in a sea of glaciers. Air can't move much when it's just a breath.

Why am I so negative? Maybe the blank slate would help. Maybe it'll just delay the inevitable. Maybe I'm just a broken record waiting til someone pulls the plug. I miss you already. I'll miss you forever.

Labor Story 2011 3rd place

 Rosemary Jasmine Rivera

“Bullet Through the Brain”

“Those leaves sure look bright today” I thought to myself as I finished collecting my garden tools. The way the image reflected on the metal handle of the rake seemed dream like. I couldn’t remember the last time I paid attention to something like that, but I did. Soon after my shift ended I went up to the owner of the house and asked for my daily payment. It was off books, always, since I didn’t have a green card. “There you go Paco, ten dollars.” the brown haired, 6 foot 2 inch bastard with a bald spot in the middle of his forehead said as he paid me 10 dollars for 5 hours. (That means 2 dollars per 1 hour. Yeah I know my math.) And to make things worse, “My name is not Paco, it’s Roberto Ponce Gonzalez.” I said under my breath. To make things even more worse, if that’s even correct English, I kept coming back for those 10 dollars for 5 hours for about 60 days. Why? Because I had to.

Every day at 3am I woke up, drank my 4 Coronas and went to the bodega around the corner to buy some more. I knew it wasn’t good for me, but that’s how I was able to get through the day without putting a bullet through my brain. Ha, it was only yesterday I went with my wife and kid through the desert to cross the border. To think I thought America was a way to get out of the hell I went through in Mexico. I lost my job in Cancun as a bartender in one of the American owned resorts. My family was barely getting by with the money I earned there. but at least I was in an environment that was familiar to me, even if the rich, white people kept getting drunk, passing out in front of me. I can’t count how many times I had to wipe the floor clean after some dumb college student threw up. The one mess I’ll never forget is the 18 year old Harvard university student who lost her top and threw up some sort of neon paste that resembled cereal and glow stick juice. Didn’t want to know what she ate to get that going. After a couple of years of that, and a child from my wife, who I only married a year before my job, I got fired from that resort. Turns out there were a lot of bartenders that could replace me, and all I had to do was spill a drink on a customer’s lap to get fired. I didn’t get any benefits, any unemployment, all I got was a goodbye and that’s what led me to here.

And I can remember, I can remember the night we decided to travel to the border. My wife was struggling to keep our daughter quiet while the border patrol drove around with their flashlights trying to pin down any of us scared mice. It was horrible. After a week of being thirsty, so thirsty we could drink seawater from a dirty glass, we made it to the guide who took us straight through the path that led to America, and my 2 dollar an hour job. Boy was he fast that guide. But he wasn’t fast enough when they spotted him in the darkness and shot him point blank in the head. The spilled brain goo made my daughter soil herself when it landed close to her right leg. We couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t scream, we couldn’t breathe. We just lay there in that bush and waited until they left. And when they did go, we ran. I picked up my child and we ran. Until that night I didn’t really think much of life, still don’t, but it kept me going. It kept me going to the spot behind Home Depot where the other day laborers stood to wait for jobs. It kept me going to somehow scrounge up enough money to pay for my little girl’s graduation dress for 5th grade, a pretty Robin's egg blue color. “And now it’ll help me with the long day I have ahead, along with my Coronas of course.” I said taking a sip of my first beer of the day.

I used to not always be a drinker. When we first got to American soil, the first thing we did was get in contact with one of the guides from the other side. He gave us some starting money and we bought ourselves some hamburgers and sodas in one of the fast food chains nearby. It was funny because even though I hate fast food, that burger tasted like heaven knowing earlier I had survived on crackers that had dirt encrusted on top.

“Roberto we have to get out of Texas. We can’t raise our child here. They’ll deport us if they catch us.” said my wife when we had been in Austin for 2 months. “I know, but we need enough money to move.” I don’t really know how we managed to save, but we made enough, both my wife and I; me by working 120 hrs a week and her by cooking and cleaning for the blancos nearby. It took us a year to save up $4,000, but we did it. I know it wasn’t much, but it was enough to buy a bus ticket to NYC and pay for a couple of months rent. “Why move?” my daughter asked me before we left. She was only seven at the time. I told her because mommy and daddy are always scared we’ll be sent back. “But why can’t we go back?” she would ask. “Because daddy has nothing there. I want you to have a chance at a better life, even if that means moving.”

It was scary. It was scary all the time. Anytime we saw a cop car we turned off the lights to the rented, run down house we lived in. If we were outside and we saw a police officer, we would walk the other way. “But that was then,and this is now. It’s better right?” I thought to myself. I picked up my six pack and heading to the door. As I heard the bells above move and jingle, a robber came in and tried to hold the store up. He had on a black ski mask but I could tell he was white. He pushed me to the ground and told me “Get the fuck down you fucking beaner, get the fuck down now.” I said softly, “I don’t want any trouble, please I have a family.” and laid down on the floor. The man hurried the store clerk to empty the cash into his plastic bag. His glasses and straight black hair had beads of sweat dripping down. I tilted my head up to see if the robber was going to leave when the store clerk took out a rifle to shoot the robber. “Bang!” was all I heard as the robber shot the clerk in the head and ran away with the money. All I could think was: “Thank God that wasn’t me.” The funny thing was that when the robbery was shown in the news, they described the assailant as black. Were they just describing his ski mask?

After that day things seemed to go down hill from there. Jobs kept getting scarcer and the few jobs I did have were demeaning. A 10 year old, not much younger than my daughter paid me 5 dollars to pick up some dog poop in the backyard of her parents brownstone in Brooklyn. I did it. Whay did I do it for? I did it for my little girl, the one thing in my life that I loved the most. She was the reason I took those god awful jobs. She was the one I lived for.

When my little girl, Gabrielle turned 11, she asked me to take her ice skating in Manhattan. I knew we couldn’t afford it, but I just couldn’t bare to make her sad. So I took her and when we got there she was the happiest little girl. She skated for hours, sometimes falling, sometimes flying. I was so happy, I didn’t think anything of it when she started coughing and sniffling. “It's just a simple cold.” I said to myself. “She'll be fine. But it ended with her getting pneumonia. We don’t have any health care so I tried to work extra jobs to pay for her medicine. “Just 2 more hours, just 2 more days, just 2 more jobs, just 2 hundred more dollars” is what I thought each time some faceless man handed me a 10 dollar bill or 20 if I got lucky. But just 2 weeks later my girl didn’t make it. And 2 minutes later I realized what all my hard work had amounted to.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. My wife’s cries deafened my own in the bedroom. I grabbed a gun I managed to get off some kid behind a liquor store near my block for 30 dollars and emptied it into my head, 1 shot. And for 1 second I saw my daughter, the beach, my family, even the dog I had when I was little. For the briefest moment, I was happy, and then the bullet went through my brain.

How Pretty Little Liars Season 3 and 4 will end (POTENTIAL SPOILERS)

(None of the pictures shown here I own.)

Hi there,

I would like to start this off by saying that I do not know for sure how production will go about doing this, in the end they could completely change it up, but if they follow the books like they did with season 1 and 2 with respects to who the killer is, I'm pretty sure I know what will happen.

First of all Maya's killer is...

The real Allison Delaurentis! Courtney, her twin sister was the one killed not Allison. She is the new A, she is the one that dug up the body and took Maya's phone, etc.

How do I guess this to be what will happen?

In the books Maya never gets killed, instead Jenna gets murdered. It is later revealed Allison kills Jenna. So I'm guessing they switched Maya for Jenn but kept the same killer.

This is how I see the scenario of how Maya died.

Maya gets grabbed by Allison's older brother, Jason, right outside Noel Kahn's cabin. Because they know each other, she gets into the car with him and they talk and she mentions that she knows something about the Delaurenti's family, like the fact that Allison had a twin. The family tried to keep that a secret and will later reveal it probably in the latter seasons. She gets out of Jason's car and plants the note at Hanna's house under the potted plant. She then later goes to her old house to, I dunno pick up something? It could also be that Jason drops her off near there and she put the note in there before Jason picked her up. Anyway, she sees something at Emily's house and thinks it's either the fake Allison or I dunno.

Either Allison hits her as she turns to face her or she hits her from behind. She hits her trachea and slams her to the ground and strangles her for good measure. Allison was stalking Maya and when Maya, like Ian, knew too much about the Twin thing, she killed them.

This is how I'm guessing season 3 will end with the revelation that Allison is the real killer at least to the audience. Season 4 might end with the "Twin thing" being exposed and the Allison taking her place as the Allison the others knew. In the books that's what she does and she convinces them she was Courtney, switched, and Courtney was the "crazy" one who escaped. Although they are both crazy... There were two initial switches. Courtney took Allison's place. Then Allison "pretend" switched by faking being the Allison that the girls knew...the girls knew Courtney.

Season 5 might be Allison attempting to kill the liars in the Poconos in a fire, who knows. But I do know this Jenn and the first A spoke to Allison in the show. She was the one that told Jenn about what Courtney had done to her.

So I hope that helps any. Please if you like what you read, read more of my articles and even check out my book.

Click Here for my book about a girl who wants to save the world from an apocalypse.

“Family: My Grandmother”

“Family: My Grandmother”

By: Rosemary Jasmine Rivera

            My grandmother was born Rosa Maria Henriquez. She was a strong woman with an easy temperament who was a bit bossy, but always took care of her family and friends. July 7^th 2012 at 2pm EST, she passed away. Not only was this a huge blow to my family, it was an especially huge blow to me. It made me change my way of thinking.

            It has been a full week since she has passed and I cannot get rid of the image of her death. I found her, blue in the lips and fingertips, July 5^th at 7:30am in her bedroom. I performed CPR and the paramedics came five minutes later to resuscitate her and take her to the ER. For two and a half days, I prayed with my mother, sister, and aunt that she would somehow miraculously make it. I even blamed myself for not noticing sooner that something happened to her. It was as if my heart died when she did. There was nothing I could do to make it better.

            A few days passed, my eyes swollen from crying, I could not sleep. I remember waking up every two hours and barely ate. I was so distraught and stressed, even more so because I had to go to the medical examiner’s office to identify her and had to make funeral arrangements. I wanted to give up. I just wanted it to all end, but then I remembered something my granma always told me. “Think positive and keep on going.”

            My granma always took care of me and always kept going even with her leg ulcers, her chronic asthma, and her chronic pain. She would wake up 6am in the morning each single day to take a bath, brush her teeth, get dressed, put her makeup on and say good morning to me. She never complained. She always smiled. She never let her illness affect her.

           She taught me a lot my granma. She taught me to be independent and do what I have to, to live. If it were not for her, I would not be here. It is the least I can do to honor her memory to keep going, even if it feels hopeless. I can say from first hand experience, it does get better. Even though her death is still fresh in my memory, I have accepted the loss and am beginning to move on. I still have a long way to go, but I know that if I take even just one-step a day, a tiny or big step, to making my life better and meeting my life goals, that is one day not wasted, one day well spent.

            I want to make my life better not just for myself, but for my family. I want to pursue my passions and go for what I want and desire. I know now what death is like and what is left behind and I want to make sure I leave something that lasts. I want to make the memory of her last. I want to give my children, if I ever have any, a life worth living by instilling in them the same values my granma instilled in me. She was a second mother to a friend, a confidant, my savior, and most of all she was my light. Even though that light has faded, it will never leave me. It will brighten my darkest of moments.

            I love you granma, always and forever. I will remember your dyed, jet-black short hair, your big brown eyes, and your warm smile. “Viva Mexico” she would say at the Mexican festival in the nursing home. “Be a realist, but be open and positive”. “Nunca déjà de pensar en ti misma.” Abuela I love you.

“The Best Five Herbs to Relieve Stress”

This is a simple and quick guide on the five best herbs to relieve stress. There are even places mentioned where these “Zen” herbs can be purchased. Sit back and relax and let the “Zen” sink in. Don’t forget to get permission from the doctor before trying out any alternative medicine.

1. Licorice Root contains a natural hormone alternative to Cortisone. No it’s not the pill Cortisol. It’s actually the natural equivalent to it! It can help normalize blood sugar which is a big plus if one has periods of insane energy and then after a while wants to take a nap. This herb helps with those pesky fluctuations. It even calms the mind, or so it is said.

2. Passion Flower is a mild sedative. It is said to help one go to sleep with its analgesic properties. If one is looking to relieve anxiety, then that is the ticket. It also treats depression, insomnia, and nervousness in some, not all people. Stress after all is a myriad of things that go bump in the brain. The herb is available in tincture, juices, and pills.

3. Kava Kava is an herb from the South Pacific. This is a strong muscle relaxant that can be used for depression and menopause. It can also be used to treat stress. Nothing like some Kava at night right before one goes to bed. Then, in the morning, one can have some Java.

4. Lavender is a great herb for de-stressing after a long hard day at work. Ever heard of the benefits of aroma therapy? Well if one likes the smell of Lavender than try it, if not stick to what is palatable to the senses. Lavender is also edible and quite tasty. Ever heard of Lavender candies/mints? It tastes pretty good. Plus Lavender is an antibacterial agent and works to balance hormones. Hormones are what make the body round and get round if there’s an imbalance.

5. St John’s Wort, as old as time, old Hippocrates, the original doctor used it to treat patients feeling blue. It certainly helps glum people feel a whole sum of good feelings, well some people, not everyone. After all, not all herbs will work for every person. It is good to try some out, with permission from the doctor of course. No one wants any unnecessary “accidents”.

Don’t try to be a guinea pig when testing out these herbs. Moderation in anything is best. Now to discuss the availability and potency for the five herbs; the best way to get some potency from the herb Passion flower is in tincture form. A few drops in a cup of tea or juice mellow one out for the night. It tends to be sweet and slightly bitter due to the alcohol in some of the tinctures. It can be purchased, like with most of the herbs in Vitamin shop, GNC, and in some pharmacies. The Kava tends to be found on Amazon.com in pill form. Lavender is readily available in supermarkets and health food stores also in pill form or food, or tincture. St. John’s Wort can be found in big supermarkets, and just about every pharmacy. Licorice root is a bit hazardous when taken in excess, so it is not advisable to take too much. One can find it online at Amazon.com, endorsements anyone?

How to Not Kill Yourself

Hi, my name is Rosemary. Sometimes you may feel as though there is no way out. That's how I felt. I tried to kill myself twice. I'm not saying my words will keep you from committing suicide, but it might help. After all, life is about learning and growing, so read on and hopefully my methods will keep you off the deep end.

Step 1:

Admit to yourself just how messed up life is. Grab a pen and paper, even a laptop and just write down every major/minor mistake you've made that has gotten you to a point where you want to kill yourself. It could be not losing weight, not going out with the "nice boy/girl", missing your payments for your bills, even something as small as not brushing your teeth every night before bed. List any and every choice YOU have made and then read through them carefully.

Step 2:

Once you've gone through step 1, write down all of the unforeseen, random circumstances that have led you to where you are now. It could be an unexpected death, an illness, an accident, or even just a simple bump into someone you know. Jot down all these seemingly random occurrences and try to remember what was happening as you were experiencing those things.

Step 3:

Accept responsibility for your actions, your choices and accept that the consequences of those actions are what led you to a path of regret and hopelessness. Then realize that those actions can also be changed to lead you away from that dark path. An example would be weight loss. You chose to not be healthy and active. You can also choose to stop your bad habits and start fresh. In the end it's not what you've done that really makes an impact, it's what you've done lately. Sure some mistakes will take a while to go away, but if you keep thinking or acting in a way where those mistakes have a longer shelf life, you will just keep suffering needlessly. Being proactive and making the good decisions that will lead to better outcomes will make those errors in judgment, even the colossal ones fade away.

Step 4:

After analyzing and seeing what you did and didn't do, know that some things are out of your control. If you completed step 2, you'll notice that perhaps you were making right choices for yourself, but something unexpected happened that slowed down your progress. It's not your fault, you couldn't help it. It's life's speed bumps that, according to your lot life, may happen often, or hardly at all. Sure it's unfair some people are lucky and barely have to deal with any truly negative situations, but that's just part of the whole universal game. "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.": To a certain extent that old saying is true. Still, it's important in this step to just take a step back, pause and let go of the worry and fear. You could go outside, talk to a friend, have some fun, forget what happened for just a night, even a week. Take this time to really understand what you want to do in life and how you want to do it. Explore, plan and think ahead.

Step 5:

This is the single most important step of all. Once you take a pause from life, from your mistakes, get right back into making the right choices for yourself. I won't lie and say it's easy. It's friggin hard, especially if you think you're just too old, too sick, too stupid, too everything. If you just start, push yourself through the initial moves, it'll get easier, you'll feel better; you might even have a new perspective, a new desire. Go out and get it! It might take a while, you might even get a dozen or more speed bumps, but trust me, if you keep going, repeating the steps, it'll go by quicker and you'll eventually breeze through the "tough times". It's not going to fix things immediately, it's not a certain fix, but it's something I used to get myself out of dying. Hopefully it will help you.

Good Luck,
Rosemary

Hi, if you liked my article, feel free to check out more on a variety of subjects such as How-To, Humor, Entertainment, and Health at http://RosemaryJasmineRivera.blogspot.com

If you want to purchase my book on how I was able to last through my depression and attempted suicide, check out this link at Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/Can-Your-Passions-Save-ebook/dp/B006ACBBJG

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6974612

To All The Agents Out There

To all the agents and the bullshit platform,

Thanks to this economy a writer like me needs to have a platform (large fanbase) in order to get an agent, let alone get published. In a world where everyone with a computer feels as though they can be pulitzer prize winning novelists (with only attending one writing workshop, I actually earned a degree in Creative Writing) and a query wait time of 6 months, it's no wonder I'm going insane with anger and disappointment. I don't have the money or the linguistic talent to garner fans. A part of me doesn't want to. I don't want fans for the sake of getting my work out there. I want my work out there so people can understand and perhaps relate to my point of view. I am a writer, born and raised in hell and I have a lot to say. My stutter, my lovely disorder that is most annoying when looking for employment, hinders and creates barriers where most people don't have any. And I swear, if I see one more agent that requires solicited material only, I will shoot myself with my water gun, right in the mouth. Oh yeah, I still have a water gun; they're friggin awesome. If you didn't know, you need an agent to have solicited material,or at least someone who knows the person you're querying personally. That's fucking retarded. Why on earth would I need to do that if the agent is supposed to be the person who presents the solicited material to the publisher? What the fuck, so I need an agent to get an agent? Let me guess I need to pay an agent, ot even better, suck their big agent cock, well no, no thanks. If I can't raise the revenue to publish my work professionally and I can't get commercially published, then screw it, I'm just going to make my work available regardless. I don't care if no one buys it, (because at the end of the day I have to survive, so no duh I'm charging) I just want it out there.

There was one person who decided to read my nonfiction book, Can your Passions Save You?. He actually liked it and wanted to contact me to let me know. That meant a lot to me. To know someone could read my story and get something out of it was worth more than getting a yes from an agent. Which by the way, I did get a yes for a query, five months later. I didn't even know she had responded. Who does that? Why would someone wait so long to say yes? Then I sent my book proposal, this time for a different book, and I was waiting and decided to email her, letting her know I won't wait 5 more months to get a yes or a no. She emailed me back the next day, and low and behold she said no. I am so sick of the whole spiel too. “Don't give up.” “Writing is subjective”. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Just say no and be done with it. Say the truth, say you didn't read it past the title because you were drinking coffee and got a phone call from one of your clients asking for an extension on whatever. We all know most agents don't read hardly any of the stuff that is sent to them, they only accept people that have networked with them, establish a platform, or paid them. So it's a joke to me when this agent lady sends me a copy and paste sample email saying the same thing she says to everyone. I know she didn't read my work, but she got upset at what I said so she replied quickly. I believe in my work, but I don't have the money or the resources to get it out there. I don't have any help, no fairy god mother or father to wave their magicks over my head into a protective halo or good luck horse shoe, or even better, an ever-expanding safety net. I only have me, myself, and I; A broken and sad person with at least one person who's liked and read my work. At least I can say I tried, and continue to try, just not as enthusiastically. Oh and by the way, the agent had the nerve to plug her stupid blog. Perhaps I should too.

P.S. All you agents out there, keep doing what you're doing, you're obviously not creating classics.

Toodles,

Rosemary Jasmine Rivera