Regardless...

...of which one came "first"; and regardless of whether one can exist without the other (impossible);

In your life, right now, at this very moment:

Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?

This is a question that bothers me more than it should these days, since more relevant (to put it lightly!) concerns are plentiful. I've already asked family and friends and keep getting the same answer, that art clearly imitates life... but I am not convinced.

I, for one, feel very often that I'm living a scenario that's been told before... wishful thinking? An imaginative interpretation? Famous last words? Maybe.

Don't feel like elaborating now, but just throwing it out there...

Hello! Happy 2009.

Um, hello! It's 2009! If anybody still checks back here anymore, have a happy new year -- and when did THIS happen?

I haven't updated in months, but here's MY New Year's resolution: write more, spend less -- i.e., be a "recessionista" (my new favorite word, kind of like a fashionista but not, clearly). Going from there, my second resolution is to start on that novel, publish, make millions, become the next J.K. Rowling (in volume, with an F. Scott Fitzgerald flair in style), and, subsequently, a UN ambassador for the peace. WORLD PEACE. Clearly, I take my New Year's Resolutions (tm) very seriously!

So much has happened in 2008 (on a number of occasions I'd even say some of the events that were bad for the world, arguably, were good for me). If I were to use only one word to describe this past year, I would say it was questionably INTERESTING.

But here's hoping 2009 will not only be more so, but that this new "interesting" mean "better"!

Facebook

I love that my now not only my parents and extended relatives, but also their friends, and my coworkers, are all on Facebook and we are all "friends". No, actually, I do think this is fabulously funny, with a slight dose of inevitable creepiness. With great power comes great responsibility... wield it wisely.

In other news, I am back from Panama and hating the season 'tis in Boston. More to come.

HALLELUJAH

Obama WINS... let us hope it is the end of an 8-year nightmare.

A tale of two immigrants

Every day, at 5:15 on the dot, I look away from my monitor to say hello to Ale*, a Dominican who vaccuums and sweeps our entire office building -- including the dermatology office upstairs. He must be in his late 40s, maybe early fifties; his hair is already silver, but he's a chipper, tan, happy guy. I don't really know much about him, except for the fact that he's Dominican and says "hello beautiful" to me every afternoon, expresses surprise at my being Russian and commiserates about having lots to do that day. I've told him I work with Spanish, so we often discuss the varieties of Spanish across South America, the different pronounciations, and how nobody can understand Puerto Rican anywhere.

"Rita," Ale says to me the other day. Usually we chat in Spanish at normal volume; most of the office leaves a little earlier anyhow. This time he sounded hushed, a little secretive. "¿Te puedo hacer una pregunta?" Can I ask you a question?
"Sure," I say.

He leans over my cubicle wall and speaks in an indoor voice. "What are the minimum qualifications to work here?"
I'm a little taken aback. "Qualifications? It depends. Depends on the role, the position."
"But what are the minimum qualifications to be employed here? The minimum qualifications for your position?"
"Well, I just graduated from college," I say. "I like it here very much. I suppose a bachelor's degree and some experience in research. I don't really know what any minimum qualifications are..."
"It would be great to work for a company like this," he says. "What does this company do?"

I tell him we make websites about public health and that I work with the Spanish projects.

"Ah," he says. "Debes saber de computadoras." Computers. "You know," he says, "I was a corporate statistician in the Dominican Republic."

I try not to look surprised or embarrassed, but I am probably not very successful at this -- as in most things when I have to hide an emotion I'm feeling, or convey one that I do not feel.

"I have another job now," he continues, "at the Home Depot in the mornings, and then this at night. It would be great to work for a company like this. I was just wondering." For the first time, I see him look less than happy. If only for a second.

"Good for you. Fuiste inmigrante también pero tuviste una educación acá," he adds. An American education.

For a millisecond, I feel a pang of needless, but nonetheless global guilt, for having drawn the straw that I was handed.

"See you later, beautiful," he tells me.

"Hasta mañana," I say, looking back to my screen.

Gurrrl Power

Hmm: if, in the year 2008 and the middle of an economic crisis, the only requirements for being a vice-presidential nominee are...

• Two X-chromosomes
• Brown hair
• Glasses
• Sassiness while holding rifle

... then maybe I should sign up for the job.

Oh mon dieu.

Nonwithstanding that Sarah Palin "can see Russia from [her] house", let us hope she never gets near any White Houses.

September 20

In less than 2 hours, I'm another year older.

Well, technically, being born in the [then] USSR, it's already done -- Moscow is 9 hours ahead. But for the purposes of qualification on U.S. soil, after 12:00 a.m. Eastern time, I add one more unit to the second digit of my age.

Geez.

That was fast.