El dulce sabor de una mujer exquisita

Una mujer exquisita no es aquélla que más hombres tiene a sus pies;
sino aquélla que tiene uno sólo que la hace realmente feliz.
Una mujer hermosa no es la más joven, ni la más flaca, ni la que tiene el cutis más terso o el cabello más llamativo;
es aquélla que con tan sólo una franca y abierta sonrisa, con una simple caricia y un buen consejo puede alegrarte la vida.

Una mujer valiosa no es aquélla que tiene más títulos, ni más cargos académicos;
Una mujer exquisita no es la más ardiente (aunque si me preguntan a mí, todas las mujeres son muy ardientes... y los que estamos fuera de foco somos los hombres);
sino la que vibra al hacer el amor solamente con el hombre que ama.
Una mujer interesante no es aquélla que se siente halagada al ser admirada por su belleza y elegancia; es aquella mujer firme de carácter que puede decir NO.

Y un hombre... un hombre exquisito es aquél que valora a una mujer así.
Que se siente orgulloso de tenerla como compañera...
Que sabe tocarla como un músico virtuosísimo toca su amado instrumento...
Que lucha a su lado compartiendo todos sus roles, desde lavar platos y tender la ropa, hasta devolverle los masajes y cuidados que ella le prodigó antes...
La verdad, compañeros hombres, es que las mujeres en eso de ser "muy machas" nos llevan gran recorrido...
¡Qué tontos hemos sido -y somos- cuando valoramos el "regalo" solamente por la vistosidad de su empaque...!


Tonto y mil veces tonto el hombre que come mierda en la calle, teniendo un exquisito manjar en casa.

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The Sweet Taste of an Exquisite Woman

An exquisite woman is not the one who has the most men at her feet,

but rather an exquisite woman has just one man, who makes her truly happy.

A beautiful woman is not the youngest, or the thinnest, nor the one with the smoothest skin or most beautiful hair.

A beautiful woman is the one who, with nothing more than a frank and open smile, rights the world with with a simple touch and good advice.

A valuable woman is not the one with the most titles or academic degrees hanging on her wall.

An exquisite woman is not the one most passionate one(although, if you ask me, every woman is very passionate, and it is us men who are out of focus).

No, an exquisite woman is one who trembles with the pleasure of making love just to the man she loves.

An interesting woman is not the one who is flattered to be admired for her beauty and elegance; it is the woman with a strong enough character to say NO.

And a man... AN EXQUISITE MAN is the one who appreciates a woman like that.

Who feels proud to have her at his partner.

Who knows to touch her like a highly skilled musician plays his beloved instrument.

Who struggles by her side, sharing all of her chores, from washing dishes and hanging clothes to giving in return the care and caresses that she lavished on him first.

The truth, my fellow men, is that women, in being "one of the boys," are way beyond us.

How foolish we have been--and are--for appreciating the gift only for the beauty of its wrappings!

A fool, a thousand times a fool, the man who eats shit in the street, having at home a delicious delicacy.

--Gabriel Garcia Marquez

State of the Onion

Agent P in Washington, DC, send me a note last night asking if I would live-text the State of the Union address, as he had been apprehended trying to sneak into the building and would be unable to access a television until he could make his 'one call'. Here are the results:

Wed, Jan 27

7:06 PM: Hail to the chief!

-Agent P: Have we solved healthcare yet?

7:13 PM: Yup. The next hour will just be a dramatic reading of the Obama's grocery list.

-Agent P: Oh, good. I heard laundry lists were out and I was wondering what they were going to use as a replacement. Take a shot every time he says 'arugula'

7:18 PM: A shot of high brown choke cherry liqueur. Ok. So far... things aren't great right now but haven't been for years. Don't blame Obama, blame partisanship.

7:20 PM: Step one- the economy. Bailout as popular as a root canal. But it kept us from losing our entire metaphorical jaw. But we are still in recovery room.

-Agent P: Got to love extended dentistry metaphors. They give you so much to chew on.

7:25 PM: Jobs no. 1 focus in 2010. Applause! And now let's look to the future: clean energy, high speed trains, no more tax breaks for outsourcers, oh my!

7:32 PM: Get your act together, America. Germany and India are so hot right now and we won't settle for second place! Chanting!

7:36 PM: Financial reform! We be serious, yo! If it ain't legit, I'ma veto that shit. More nuclear power plants, more offshore drilling and coal. Hippies are crying!

-Agent P: Is he wearing a power tie?

7:39 PM: Yes. Wide windsor knot in peppermint pink and red. Climate bill! Clean energy for the win and/or global domination. New trade deals?

7:40 PM: Oh hey, education. Who be stealing our future? Will there be an intermission?

-Agent P: Yes, after Brutus and Marc Anthony make their speeches.

7:43 PM: Student loans out, Pell grants in. Public service jobs = loan breaks. All debt erased after 20 years. Assuming you're alive after 2012.

7:48 PM: Let's clear a few things up: healthcare reform isn't fun or easy, unlike my bedazzler. But it has got to happen.

7:51 PM: Deficit time. Cue funky breakdance music. President probably has parachute pants on behind podium.

7:54 PM: Although Obama will pass on devastatingly good looks to future generation, deficit stops now.

7:55 PM: Or maybe next year.

8:02 PM: Transparency new watchword. And now, bringing it full circle, the split along party lines is lame. Seriously, guys, get over yourselves. Oh, and democrats still pwn.

8:07 PM: Terror watch: not a new bad ass model from rolex. We better look alive! Bring it Al Qaida. Iraq, you are on your own. Kind of. Maybe. Uh, at the end of term.

8:08 PM: Epic serious face.

8:13 PM: Enemies: nuclear weapons, HIV/AIDS, climate change. Friends: human dignity, the underdog, law abiding citizens.

8:15 PM: Ask! Tell! Wave that rainbow flag! And that pink lady flag! And the Mexican flag while you're at it! Oh to be a militant lesbian from Durango right now!

8:21 PM: Never give up! Never surrender! -end transmission-

So says Jim

ME: Daddy, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? You're going to be all alone...
JIM: Well....it's just going to be me and Ruby. I'm going to tie a little napkin around her neck, and for just one night she can eat at the table.

You ain't got not alibi!

You ugly, yeah yeah, you ugly.

The walk home from work this afternoon left me feeling a little lonely, so I reached out to family and friends via the novel technology of the 'mobile phone.' I took a horrific photo of myself in the metro:


and sent it out along with a request for them to take the ugliest picture of themselves with their phone that they could and send it back to me. I told them it was 'for science.' Which it isn't, but it sure lent the whole thing an air of credibility. Below are the first arrivals. I will post more as they come in.

Multimedia Update!

Here is a video of Rodrigo and Gabriela's playing style. Wish I had the video from the office concert, but I guess Bob Boilen doesn't feel like sharing.

Note: Those are Rodrigo's hands in the video, Gabriela is off screen.

Revelations

As I delve further and further into the world of NPR and the city of DC, I realize just how much there is to the world that I hadn't paid attention to before. At the office, everything is a novelty: company e-mails, conference calls, boardroom meetings. All the corporate tradition is something I had only ever heard of before in legend, and on Office Space. Thankfully, NPR is what I like think of as 'corporate lite'. The umbrella of casual Friday extends over the entire work week, and the weekends are a free for all. Any competition between co-workers is channeled into pick-up games of waste-paper basketball. It could be worse.

Around town everything is new, too. On weekends I leave the house in the morning and walk down to Colombia Heights to the metro station there. In the half hour that it takes me, I pass through neighborhoods of big Victorian three-stories, then move into the tightly packed Queen Anne row houses with their scrolled balconies and shuttered windows, their stateliness undermined only a little by their peeling paint and the faded and mismatched lawn chairs on the stoops. Just after I pass the house with the miniature adobe style village on the front gate, just beyond the yard with about 6 statues of the virgin nestled into the various potted plants, the homes give way to a stretch of rudimentary commercial blocks with signs in two, sometimes three languages. There is Herman's hardware store, the Guatemalan Bakery, Ropa Latina clothing boutique, and four or five pupuserias. There is a Brazilian Beauty hair salon, and a Puerto Rican souvenir shop. What I am most excited about, however, is the helote trailer parked in the front yard of an old house, behind their chain-link fence. I am hoping, in some Brigadoon-like glory I will one day round the corner to find them with windows flung open selling the tacos and helote and tamales that they advertise on the side.

The small, colorful storefronts give way to the shining, sculpted behemoths of Target and Best Buy as I get close to the metro, though still there is an empanada stand on the opposite curb from Payless, and the kids running around in the newly built fountain are shouting at each other in Spanish. The magic of DC is that when I emerge from the metro downtown, close to work, I will find myself in the middle of Chinatown, under the elaborate friendship arch and her paper lanterns. The ethnicities here are as numerous as the stops themselves, and each few blocks you stumble into another neighborhood ripe with its own language and culture.

Big Day!

Friday night I arrived home exhausted by a full run of 18 hours of awesome.

Work is still incredible, partly because it's so new, but partly just because it's NPR. In the afternoon, the acoustic, flamenco-influenced jam duo Rodrigo y Gabriela were on the fifth floor and they played a few songs for us in the middle of the office. Incredible. Will post video later.

After that goose-bump inducing performace, the rest of the afternoon flew by in a daze, utnil I was pulled fro my musical high by an offer of free tickets to the Shakespeare Theater to see Helen Mirren in Phedre. Of course I said yes.

I had just enough time to get off the bus, throw on some more appropriate theatre-going clothes, and jump right back on the bus to chinatown and the show. The performances were a little scattered, but that falls more to the director than the cast, and over all it was beautiful. Depressing, but beautiful.

And I get to do this every week!