Brenda's Little Quiz

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Kayvon’s little gopher.
2. Selling shoes at a god-forsaken strip mall in Cudahy.
3. Late-night inventory taker for second-rate company.
4. And inventory/purchasing guy for (going on) 14 yrs now.

Four movies you would watch over and over again?
1. I would say Creator, but I’m always sad when it’s done.
2. I would say Running on Empty, but I always cry when it’s done.
3. I would say West Side Story, but I never feel pretty when it’s done.
4. Monsters, Inc. cuz I should be the big blue thing in it.

Four places you have lived:
1. I don’t know if these memories are from the same place, and I don’t know where they are, but one is a house somewhere in Nicaragua, with an old, twisted avocado tree in the back that bears my name in its bark about three feet off the ground, carved when I was just a child and my dad was still Superman; and a house with a shiny-barked tree in the front with the warm and festive smell of Pinolillo from the big green balls it made as fruit, all around it, that made summers sweet and rain worth dancing in.
2. A dark, damp, cold apartment in San Jose, California, hidden under the stairs, three blocks from life and yet devoid of any happiness—there were just not enough blankets in the place to keep me from shivering through the night.
3. A big, empty, warm, airy apartment in Fullerton, California, where R (not the same from below) and I spent four years hosting friends and playing with my children every other weekend. Andre went blond there when he was 3. We’d all go swimming, go to Woolworths—when they were still around; now it’s Target—and walk over to the movies or to Starbucks or both.
4. A house made of concrete blocks, with weird, twisty, white texture laid on them like dried-up earthworms fleeing from the scorching tropical sun; a place where roaches fly and one lonely, little scorpion instilled in me a phobia from which I still suffer; an ever-shifting house always under construction or deconstruction or change or redesign, where life was never boring but not for that all that happy and still, where in 1983 my parents lived like I am told happy marriages can live, full of tenderness and peace, sharing secrets with a glance and simply enjoying their children’s breaking voices and longer, ungainly limbs.

Living, you see, is rarely about the place.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. NUMB3RS (ain’t he dreamy?)
2. Battlestar Galactica (I’m rooting for the cylons)
3. Extreme Engineering (yes, I’m a geek)
4. CSI Miami (I bet you can’t guess which one I find dreamy)

Four places you have been on vacation: (the tales these places could tell!)
1. Tijuana
2. Las Vegas
3. San Francisco
4. Rosarito

Four websites I visit regularly: (you don’t HONESTLY expect me to be honest, do you?)
1. Google. It’s clean, it’s simple, it’s fast, and it’s simply just what I need when I go there. And now Froogle will find it for you FOR LESS!
2. Hotmail. Did he write me back YET?
3. Ebay. (I still want my 6MT G35, 2005 or newer, for US$22,000 or less—is that too much to ask for? Is that SO WRONG?)
4. some places I wouldn’t repeat in church and thus, on advise of my attorney, respectfully decline to mention in writing on the grounds that I might incriminate m’self. ;-)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Arroz a la valenciana as long as Ash makes it woot woot
2. Chilaquiles, rojos (how messican o’ me)
3. Uncle Howie’s Pizza (it’s in Redlands, near the University Of)
4. Fried Ripe Plantains (I should write a book hotter, spicier, and more fun than Fried Green Tomatoes)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. The Holy Land
2. Home, in bed, still sleeping. Waking up early SUX.
3. @ R’s, herein traditionally refered to as Carlos, in bed, cuddling. This is PERFECT cuddling weather.
4. Seattle, Washington, preferably with R, in bed, cuddling. Those damned people ALWAYS have good cuddling weather.

Four friends I am tagging that I think will respond...
1. Nobody, cuz I hate chain letters
2. Nobody, cuz I hate chain surveys.
3. Nobody, cuz I hate gettin’ to know me better.
4. Nobody, bah humbug! (gimme a break, it’s too early to be in a good mood and it’s 35 degrees IN LOS ANGELES!)


Miguel