I once was a writer...

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet - right? But then, when remembering who you are, you need to know where you come from, or so said Mufasa. And both of those require your name. So your name is you . And changing your name changes you. Right? If a rose were called "violet" it would not be a rose. Yes? I don't know. I'm not even sure what side I'm arguing for. Or against. All I know is that right now I am faced with making the decision of what the heck to do with my name. My name is really long (last name, that is), because in Colombian culture people use both their father's as well as their mother's last name. It used to be that when women married, their name would be legally changed: They would lose their mother's name, keep their father's, and become "of" the husband. For example: my aunt was born Graciela Murillo Salazar. But when she married (a half a century ago) she legally became Graciela M...

On my way back home one day last week, my mom told me a very sad story: a friend of hers from highschool, one of her very best friends, was going to go through her second chemotherapy session on that very moment - breast cancer. Terrible news, and scary, too, because it could have been my mom. Or me. So I informed Honey that I would not be going home for lunch, and changed my plans and my schedule - something that the very German me does not do easily. I decided I would help her. Instead of going home, I went to the hairdresser and cut 27 cm (a little over 10 in) of hair. That was my hair. I had let it grow out for a little over a year. I cut off 27 cm! That's a little over 10 inches in American. A friend of mine had recently told me about Locks of Love , a non-profit organization that helps people with hair-situations due to chemo. I looked into a similar possibility in Germany and upon finding none, decided I would mail my hair to the LOL people. I was going to ma...

Since I turned 23 for the fifth time, I have come to think a lot about what it will be like. What it will all be like. In the future, tomorrow even. What will it be like when I finally turn my real age (which, fyi, I have decided will be next year in Barranquilla. Stay tuned to learn what that "real age" is!), what will it be like when I turn 30 or 40 or 50... if I ever turn 30 or 40 or 50. So far, I've come up with this: I will be a tea-person. Not an Earl Grey sort of person, not a Darjeeling sort of person, never ever a Cinnamon spice type of person. But a tea-person nonetheless: peppermint, apple, cherry, wild fruits, but maybe not a mango-tea sort of person. I will be a tea-person, having one for every occasion, before I sleep, when I awake, when I face writer's-block (which is more often than I am willing to publicly admit), when I am stressed (which, thanks to my new life, is, like, never ), and when I need to lose weight - which, if a woman is truly honest...

I've been privileged, I can openly admit that. I have been free and independent and, yes, even a little crazy and wild at times. But I have been free and independent and crazy and wild because I've always known that I have a "pillow" to fall upon, should I ever need such a thing. Let's say, for the sake of simplicity, that I have a secret Swiss bank account. This is not a bottomless bank account that I access at any time; this is, rather, my safety net. I have only used it twice. Well, three times, really. The most recent time was earlier this year when I had an insurance "situation". This situation shall be another post... In any case, it was good to know that my secret Swiss bank account was there, ready to help at any moment, ready to be used. Since it's in Switzerland I pay no taxes, regardless of where I live or regardless of how much I withdraw. It is set up in such a way that it requires no deposits to be kept active, only a sporadic online ch...

It was in that moment when she realized that she had to make a decision. Right then and there. There was no time for stalling or doubting or waiting. A decision had to be made, and she was the only one who could make it. It had to be her decision, because it would change her life forever. Yes, it would of course also affect the lives of the many people who surrounded her, of the many people who surrounded her because they loved her - because they love her. Yes, their lives would also be affected by her decision; but they would not be woken up in the middle of the night with the question, "Did I make the right decision?" circling in their heads. Their lives would too be affected, yes, but with time they would forget, the pain would go away, the anger would fade, the incomprehension would wither. But not for her - no, most definitely not for her. This decision, the one that she was facing in this very moment, would transform her in ways she had not even become to fathom. This d...

I don't know why I used that phrase - I hate it, and I'm not sure I quite get it. But I'll give it a try. Why must we (or is it only me?) have the need to have our cake and eat it too? Why can't we just let the cake be, knowing that the cake is ours. Why must we eat it? To not make the analogy more complex than it needs to be, why do I want to get married?! I live with a wonderful guy who loves me, who cooks deliciously, and who pays for all my expenses while in a foreign country (that last bit of information is sadly important, right?). Yes, we live in sin. But for all intents and purposes, we're married. Minus the document from the Holy Church. We do what married couples do: we sleep together (fully clothed, of course, just in case my parents are reading this!), we eat together, we go out together, we don't see other people, we don't behave ourselves inappropriately with other people; we go shopping together, sometimes I even manage to dress in the s...

We had the loveliest Skype-chat with Honey's sister and her husband. She's about 7 months pregnant and looks so cute and chubby, and her husband is so sweet: he talks to her belly and caresses it. They are such an amazing couple, such a real couple, such a successful couple. I envy them - in a good way. We're actually pretty good friends, the husband and I. We understand each other and our position as outsiders in what is a very close, tight-nit family that ALWAYS has a thought that must be shared and an opinion that must be voiced. Not to forget, they also hold the undeniable truth. But then again, I could very well be describing my family to an outsider, or more than likely, yours. Families are "interesting", to say the least. And all we can do is learn to love them in spite of themselves. So anyway, we were talking and talking, quatsching , like the Germans say. About the weather, about our dinner, about cost of living in Peru and Germany and Colombia... and ...

I watched and loved the ABC series, and just recently I finished reading the book. "Flashforward", by Robert J. Sawyer, is a book meant for SciFi lovers. And the ABC series had nothing to do with the book - except for the premise (that there was a global blackout in which people experienced a little over a minute of their futures) and the name of the scientist who alledgedly caused it: Lloyd Simcoe. Aside from that, it's like it's two completely different stories. But that's not what I want to talk about. I also don't want to talk about how I understood little of the last 100 pages, due to the extremely detailed physics and quantum mechanics and blah blah blah; Sawyer could have been making up words for all I know, but still. I guess the whole SciFi thingy is just not for me. I also don't want to talk about how I spent two days reading a 300-page book that I didn't particularly like, just so that I could say (to myself, at least) that I read it. I re...