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You must be really bored.

Hello! This is me. I plan on making a list of all the things that I'd consider interesting about me. I suck at bios, so please read on and then you figure it out, OK? Thanx. If you make any sense out of it, please be so kind as to tell me.

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Facts about me

I was born on January 16th 1979. According to some website or other, the #1 song in the world charts at that date was YMCA. I am convinced this is the reason why I'm so screwed.

The previous fact makes me at this date 24 years old. I quite like it, thanks. However, I tend to forget it and, when people ask my age, I'm liable to answer "Twenty-two." Then someone generally elbows me and says, "Hum, Gaby..."

I am 5 feet something. I can't quite work it out yet. Wait.

Got it. I am 5 feet 6. I weigh 127 punds. I feel extremely fat most of the time, although I know I'm not. There was a time, when I was nineteen, that I got to weigh 88 pounds. I know that's sick, but I still think that's the best I've ever looked. I am one big exploding freckle. I like that, my nose, and nothing else about my physique.

When I was two years old, my mom took me to the doctor because she was worried. I hadn't cried at all for more than a year. The doctor said everything was just fine with me. I wonder...

Also, when I was two years old going on three, I learned to read by myself. My mom would read to me, and then quit so she could do her stuff, so I learned to read so I didn't need to wait for her. I was writing by the time I was four.

I had an imaginary friend who, coincidentally, beared the same name Belendor does. He and I were the sheperds of a herd of giant red oxen, and we lived inside a clock.

Also, when I was three, I was stung by a bee. In the tongue. That's the first real memory I have. I was just running around (with my mouth open, don't ask me why), the bee got in and it stung me.

I was raised a Catholic. I no longer do that, don't worry. I'm not exactly an atheist, but I'm not religious either. If I have to lay my money on some god, it would be Milton's. And I don't think he cares at all for us.

When I was sixteen, I took an IQ test. It turned out mine was 163. They tell me that's above average; I tell you it's crap. I still can't figure out my tax returns.

I am a nervous cat. When I was eleven or twelve, I had a great bald spot over my left temple because I'd pull my hair out. I have never been able to grow my nails. The problem is, not only I chew on my nails, but also on my fingers. I have the most horrible hands in the world. I recently discovered the skin over the middle knuckle of my right hand has lost sensitivity, because I'm constantly biting it. From 16 to 18, I was very much into self injury. Now don't do this at home, children. I'd take a knife and just slice away. As a result, I have multiple scars in my arms and legs. Not pretty.

Now I've traded the slicing for a more socially accepted practice, which is piercing. I have pierced my bellybutton, my right eyebrow and my tongue. The most painful was the tongue, but it's also the one I like the most. Future piercings include my lip (like Cristina), another in the eyebrow and probably my nose. Never my clit, thanks very much.

I was legally blind for about one month. You see, I started wearing glasses when I was eleven, then wore contact lenses for almost ten years with increasing prescriptions. Then one day the doctor said contact lenses for my degree of shortsightedness weren't manufactured; so they put me on regular glasses. He also told me that, compared to a person with normal sight (20/20), I had about 3% of their vision. I had to quit the regular glasses also, because, apart from the fact that I looked like Mrs. Magoo from hell and I scared children on the street, also the distorting effect of the glasses made it impossible for me to walk. If I did I got dizzy, and if I insisted I started to feel pukey. So they decided to operate on me, but a month had to go by for some reason or other. During that month I couldn't do anything on my own. I didn't see anything but a big white blur.

During that time I happened to go to a King Crimson concert, and of course I didn't saw them but only heard them. When we were going out, everybody forgot I couldn't see and they left me behind. Those were the most scaring 10 minutes of my life. The concert hall was floored with white marble, and I knew there were some stairs someplace, but I couldn't see them. I'd think I'd spotted someone from the group, and started to move towards that blur, and I learned they weren't when I was squinting one inch from a stranger's face.

Facts about my thankfully small family

My favorite is my brother, Corvux. He was born on October 16th, 1983. That makes him nineteen at this moment. He's one of my favorite people in the whole world. He's studying Philosophy. He's a strange dude. I was the good girl who has turned out to be crazy, and he was the bad boy who has turned out to be sane. When we were little, I was quiet and studious. He was a pain in the ass. He became more and more audacious, until one day he was arrested when he was eleven. My parents sent him to therapy. It didn't help. Then they turned it into a family thing. It was then that I started my hate-hate relationship with psychologists. But anyway, he has grown up not minding my parents and now he is a fine fellow. He tends to burp in the most inappropiate occasions, and he has the worst musical taste, but he's mostly OK. Until I met Belendor, he was my best friend.

My dad. Oh, my dad is a great enigma wrapped in mystery. At my parents' it is forbidden to ask anything about his young years. Don't ask me when this started, and don't ask me how we have managed to not talk about it in all these years. Over time, my brother and I have tied ends and know part of the story, but there are still many gray and black areas. He is 73 now. He had me when he was 50. He was born in Barcelona, and then because of [unknown and unspeakable reasons], his family and he had to flee from Spain into Casablanca. Yes, that place actually exists, it's not only a movie. It is in Morocco. And my dad and his family were some of the countless exiliates that yearned for a plane to go away. He arrived to Mexico in 1942.

We know they lived in an awesome and strangely built house. We also don't know where the money to build this mansion came from. We do know the house was built between 1945 and 1947, and we do know his parents didn't have a single solitary cent when they arrived here; in fact, we know after many sermons meant to make us realize our good fortune, that our Grandmother worked for a time as a maidservant in order to feed her family. We also kind of understand that our Grandfather was absent for some years, but we don't know that for a fact. All that I know is, 3 or 4 years are not enough to gather the money needed to build a house of that size and splendor. And it was indeed a mansion; I visited it last year, on an errand completely unrelated with my family, and I got a chance to know it. It is a mansion; guys and gals: it has about fourteen bedrooms. Any theories, write them here. They also owned a house in Acapulco.

Then, there is a great big blank after his 20th birthday. We know he lived for some time in Buenos Aires. We have no idea what he might have been up to down there. Then, somehow, he went to New Jersey. From some papers Corvux and I found some years ago, we know he got married to an American girl circa 1956. They had three daughters, the youngest of which is about 15 years older than me. On some point they moved back to Mexico. Then, on 1974, he met my mom and they got involved. He is 20 years older than her.

I don't know what kind of arrangement my dad and his wife have. All I know is, all my life my dad has come home at about 3 pm, stays until 10 or so, and then goes back to his "home". That troubled me very much when I was little. I used to think all the daddies went "home" at the end of the day, and when I found this wasn't so, I got all confused, but even then I knew better than to ask any questions. As I told you, I don't even remember when I learned I was not supposed to ask, but even at 4 I knew it. I never met my grandparents, but they sent gifts regularily. I remember once asking my mom when I was about 5, 'Why don't we ever go to see Grandma?' and she answered 'I guess we haven't found the time, have we?'. She died about ten years ago, and I never saw her face.

Mine is a strong, handsome, intelligent dad. There's no subject he hasn't heard of and learned something about. Ours has been a love-hate relationship. He was the one who taught me English; he was the one who brought me a kitten when I was 4 and taught me how to take care of him; he was the one who bought me later my first dog and showed me how to train her; he taught me to be inquisitive and never to ask why but what. But still, he was also a man who frightened me because he had such a quick temper; he would yell at anything and made me jump. He made me hold a wet cloth under the place where he was drilling despite the fact that the sound the electric drill made scared me so much. To this day, I can't stand that sound. It makes me cry. He was also the man who brought rules to our house; my mother is more flexible and when he wasn't home we could chew gum, eat fries, drink Coke, watch TV while we were eating, etc. But when he arrived, we had to sit straight at the table, chew with our mouths closed, and eat everything on the plate whether we were hungry or not. He had a quick temper, he did, and he was not averse to slapping. He never used his fists on us, only his open hand, but it would be so sudden and generally unexpected! You would be doing your homework and maybe you'd just answered your mother with a rather spicy comment about how you couldn't fetch that just now because you were busy, and that hand would come down at you and strike hard when you less expected it. Of course, this is not child abuse and I know it now, but back when I was eleven or twelve I thought so; I had grown an inner anger towards my father and I didn't like him much.

My teenage years were very difficult. He wouldn't let me do anything. It didn't matter if it was a party, or a day-trip, or a picnic at the park, or a visit to a friend's; I couldn't go. It didn't matter if we'd be chaperoned or not, if there were going to be boys there or not, I couldn't go. 'You have no business going,' he'd say. 'You've got much better things to do here, such as helping your mother.' He was from the old-school, I can understand that now, but I still can't see what was the harm in me going to the movies with a bunch of kids, as opposed to what I ended up doing, which was sneaking out at night to party with people much older, wiser and meaner than me. I think now, if he'd let me go to these innocent outings with kids my age, I wouldn't have ended up doing all the things I ended up doing, which were things no 13-year-old girl has business doing.

This situation lasted until I entered college. Then I decided not to ask for his permission anymore and just do what I wanted. From then on we hardly spoke to each other. We were always mad at each other. Of course, he wasn't as strong then; we was getting old fast, and I was growing up faster. Ours was a battle of wills, and I still don't know who won it. By the time I overcame my anger, he was an old man. He fell asleep at his computer, and over coffee.

Then I moved out the house. At first he was very angry at me, especially because I was moving in with a man. But then, when he saw I was going for it anyway, he gave a 180� turn and became very supportive. Until this day, I think my moving out has been the best thing that has ever happened to my family. I was the squeaking wheel there. Since I'm gone, my relationship with him (and with Mother as well) has been the best ever, and I've come to really appreciate his love and support. Besides, Corvux and my parents' relationship improved enormously as well. I think they didn't come to notice him until I was gone.

As I said, my relationship with Father now is better than ever, but nevertheless I sometimes think it's too late for us. We can't talk to each other anymore. I guess we spent so many years communicating through mom that we just can't speak among ourselves. When I visit them, my mother will carry the weight of the conversation. Sometimes he'll give me a ride to my house on his way "home". It's a 20 minute ride, and I can feel how both of us are struggling to find a subject for conversation. It's kind of depressing when all you can talk with you father relates to the weather. This saddens me. I love my Dad, but I can't talk to him.

He has been ill lately, and I wouldn't want to be over-dramatic, but I get the feeling he's not going to last much longer. And I'm paralyzed about it. Tough.

My mom, now she's much simpler to speak about. She's 50-ish now (there mom, I didn't tell your age!). She's not from the capital, she is from a province known by the closemindedness of its inhabitants. My mom and my grandma, though, are actually quite cool people. The problem is with their relatives. They suck big time. My mom is also an independence junkie, I think I got it from her. She managed to fight out of that terribly stale society with her works mostly intact. Our relationship was easier than the one with my dad's, but only a little. She's very old fashioned. I know that's a teenager statement, but she is. She's very straitlaced when it comes to certain things.

The only sex-education I ever got from her was a description of the menstrual cycle. I remember asking her once, when I was nine, what a condom was, and she told me 'You're too young to ask those questions.' I didn't learn what a condom was until two years later, when I saw one stretched over a man's dick. A very healthy way of finding out.

She's also maimed by her upbringing. Intellectually, she knows she is an emancipated female who's not required to wait on her man as a servant. She also knows intellectually she is entitled and somehow obliged to be an active and productive member of her society, a self-fulfilling capable woman, and feels compelled to comply. She also knows intellectually there's nothing wrong with having children with a man she's not married to. But she has another side. A side that tells her, for example, that what she's done is a sin an probably has condemned her to hell, the one who answered 'I guessed no one brought cameras' when I asked why I hadn't ever seen photographs of their wedding day instead of telling me the truth. A side of her compells her to be a good little woman and a good little wife, and a stainless-steel mother, daughter and friend.

Consequently, she's always stressed out because she has to pour the coffee, hang the clothes out to dry, paint a new sideboard for me, sell a life-insurance policy, make lunch for my brother, take my grandma to the doctor and pick up a friend at the airport, all of it roughly at the same time. She feels guilty when due to work reasons she's not home on time to serve dinner. And she equally hates herself because she doesn't have time to paint, which is what she really likes, because she's *got* to rearrange the spices in the kitchen. She's good at everything she does, she's a perfect cook, she's a great painter, she's a faithful friend, a devoted mother and wife.

It's exhausting to grow up with someone like that, believe me. It's suffocating, as well. I don't want to sound mean, but sometimes I would want her to just sit still for one second and stop doing things for me or for someone else. She's a woman who gives all to everyone, but she also expects all from everyone. When I was little, I'd say, 'It would be fun to make a mobile for my room and hang it over there.' By next day I'd have six mobiles hanging all over my room. Now, I am afraid to tell her anything because I know that if I happen to say 'I think I'm gonna need a shelf over here' she'll be at my door tomorrow with the shelf, which she has previously cut from the woods, shaped, sanded, varnished and polished, the required screws and her electric drill, she'll shoulder me out of the way and she will attach the shelf exactly where I said I wanted it.

Now, I just feel amused by her and sometimes a little overwhelmed, but when I lived with her it was a torture. Gosh, I feel bad writing this, but it was. She gives everything, she wants everything. I'd say, 'I don't want to go to church', and she'd start crying and say, 'But I painted your room green, just as you wanted!' I'd say, 'I don't want to take painting classes' and she'd say, 'But I wash your clothes and cook you meals and buy your shoes!'. Then, the worst of all: she'd say 'You don't love me. I do all sorts of things for you because I love you, but you never do anything for me.' Even now, she calls me every day on the phone, and she'll say 'Oh, I'm going to let you go now, I see I'm boring you and you don't want to talk with me.'

I think my Mom actually thinks I don't love her, but I do. I love you very much Mommy, but don't give me anymore. You make me feel guilty. I have nothing to give you back. I do love her very much, she just tires me out. She's got all this energy coming out of her pores all the time and I just can't keep up with her. She's a bit of a control freak in a subtle, manipulative way, and she's the kind of people who kills you softly with love. There was a time of my life I was as afraid of her as I was of my father. Now, though, as I said, things are much better. But she still makes me feel uneasy. Stop Mommy, I can't pay you back.

My grandma is a cartoon character. She deserves mention because of that. She's 83 now, and she still bounces around as a ball. She's the most energetic person I've ever met in my life. We will all be exhausted and lying on the floor and she will still be spinning around and wanting to play some rummy. I sometimes think she and my mother kept for themselves the energy meant for the entire family and that's why Corvux and I were born exhausted. She's great, and she makes the best cookies you have ever tasted.

The rest of my family deserve no space here. All of my cousins and uncles and aunts and nieces and nephews are a bunch of self-righteous prissy straitlaced pricks and no good can come out of talking about them.