Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Romance Novels: My Proverbial Crack

  A few months ago, I was introduced to The Fifty Shades Trilogy.  Now, at first, I was very reluctant and for a reason:  I hated Romance novels and all things Romantic in nature.  Having just gotten out of a bad relationship, Romance had become the furthest thing from my mind.  I had forgo dreams of being kissed by a handsome prince and being whisked away into my happily ever after.  I put all thoughts of love and happiness into a storage bin and kicked it into the dark corner of my mind to let it gather dust and cobwebs.  After the shit my ex put me through, I wanted nothing more to do with Romance let alone read it.

  However, once I read through the trilogy, I found myself reading it again and again and again and again.  Then, before I knew it, I was recommending it to everybody, including my co-workers and strangers on the street.  I found myself even buying duplicate copies of all three books because when I would lend it out I found myself missing it and wanting to read it yet again.  It got so bad that I now had to psyche myself into diving into a literary database at work to try and find something similar. 

  Then, good fortune struck in a post on my Facebook timeline from a good friend from high school.  She recommended that I read "Bared To You" by Sylvia Day.  So, finding that I could not get it at work because it was on hold, I impatiently ran out during lunch and got the book.  And, like The Fifty Shades Trilogy, I found myself reading this one again and again and again and again. 

  Once again, I found myself in need of yet another similar read.  So, one day after work, I ventured into Barnes and Noble to buy a magazine.  I turn to see a display and saw the following:  If you liked Fifty Shades of Grey, then you will like... It was the book "Gabriel's Inferno" and its sequal "Gabriel's Rapture" by Sylvain Reynard.  I finished these two within 72 hours.  And, like before, read it again and again and again. 

  Yes, I will admit that my latest fixation on Romance novels has become, as the title of this blog says, my proverbial crack.  I am now addicted to books that I had vowed to avoid reading at all costs.  Books that I had earlier admonished for catering to the fantasies of Lonely, Single Women and Desperate, Bored Housewives.  Books I chalked up to being nothing but schlock that ALL women wish would happen to them in real life.  I would fantasize about having a huge bonfire consisting of nothing but these crap books.  Now, the thought is no longer entertained.

  Now, some men may feel that by their girlfriends or wives reading these books that this renders them insignificant as a lover.  I don't think they do.  They just take us away from reality temporarily.  It's not that you're bad in the sack or if you have Micro-Penis that you cannot satisfy them.  It's just our pornography of choice. 

  For the men reading this, I ask you this:  Playboy, Penthouse or Hustler?  Which of these magazines do you look at when you are in your bathroom rubbing one off while you have Metallica blaring in hopes to mask your cries of fantastical pleasure while you look at a woman other than the one you're with?  Answer that one for me!  And some of you have the audacity to get pissed off at us for reading a trilogy of books because all of us women fantasize about having our very own Christian Grey!  You can masturbate while looking at another woman in a magazine, but if we read about another guy in a book you get pissed with us!  If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, then I don't what it is!  Stop admonishing us for what we read and we won't admonish you for yours!  Let us have our porn and we will gladly let you keep yours in whatever spot you have it hidden in! 

  There, I've made a case for us women.  Now I'm going back to my current read.  Good night!

Friday, September 7, 2012

Tania Head: Whoever You Are, How Could You?!

  As a child, I grew up in the town of Bayonne, New Jersey.  Bayonne is situated not more than ten to fifteen minutes away from New York City, particularly the Holland Tunnel.  As a child, I grew up looking at the Twin Towers.  I had the honor of going up to Windows on the World and the Observation Deck.  I even had dreams of even flying from the very top of Tower Two over New York City, looking down at the little ants that were people.

  On September 11th 2001, I was working as a merchandise hostess at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  I woke up one beautiful, warm Florida morning to turn on Telemundo and find that Tower One was on fire.  I was startled and I called my mom to know what was happening only to find my call abrubtly cut off.  I tried calling again only to find the lines were jammed.  I began to fear the absolute worst:  What if my youngest cousins were in the towers on a class trip?  What if my uncle or aunt was there for something important?  All the what ifs you can ever imagine.  Then, when I saw the first tower collapse that I made the decision to go to work.  In a car that was overheating, I was delivered the sudden shock of the second tower breaking down.  I almost crashed into a gate before I regained control and informed a guardsman that both towers were now gone.  He wept as he told me he knew.  I parked my car, boarded a bus and went to work whilst consoling many cast members who were, like me, from the New York/New Jersey area.  Many of those who have attempted tons of time to try and contact their loved ones. 

  I remember 9/11/01 EXTREMELY VIVIDLY!  I grew up not very far from the World Trade Center and even flew home to see family I had, initially, thought I had lost.  Thankfully, they are alive.  The scent of burning jet fuel and decay haunts me to this very day.  When September 11th comes around, the scent returns and it frightens me.  I cannot even look at photographs that I, and, family members have taken without being reduced to tears. 

  But, there is one thing that has sickened me, and that is the disgusting and very disgraceful and disrespectful deception of a woman named Alicia Esteve Head, otherwise known as Tania Head.  She claimed to have been a 9/11 Widow when, in truth, she was not a widow at all.  She was, in fact, a business student in Spain at the very time when 9/11 happened.  She took advantage of this very, very, very, VERY critical time in our country's history to claim she was (and not at all!) a 9/11 widow to someone who had died, but did not know her from Adam.  She gained influence by being a supposed 9/11 widow, when, in truth, she was not one at all.  She even became President (get THAT!) president of the 9/11 Survivors Society when, in truth, she never was one whatsoever!  She gained the trust of MANY, MANY, MANY people, including Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg, in due, deep respect!  She had no shame, whatsoever!  She knew the sham she was playing and she learned from the best:  Her own family, who had been shamed by their own con in their respective country of Spain.

  Tania Head, or whoever you truly are, how dare you?!  How DARE you?!  You conned people into thinking that you lost someone you supposedly loved, but NEVER knew, that you survived the collapse of the World Trade Center and, in some twist of fate, lost your fiance and, somehow, was saved by someone who did not know of your identity at all, to the collapse.  I just have one question to ask of you:  HOW DARE YOU?!  You are not even a citizen of this country!  You have not even lived five SECONDS in New York City!  However, you have claimed that you had met, fallen in love and have become ENGAGED to someone you had never even met in your entire life!  Please give me an explaination why I should even believe anthing you've have told the media?! 

  I think you still, to this day, still continue to believe your own lies. I think that you still think of yourself as a 9/11 widow.  However, as a novice journalist,  I believe you are definitely not.  You are nothing but a con artist torn out of the same fabric as your father and your brothers.  To this day, I will never, ever, EVER believe a word you utter out of your own mouth.  Take my words as a compliment rather than an insult.  I was born here, raised here, grew up with the World Trade Center in my back yard.  Unlike you, I will always, ALWAYS, see those two towers hovering over me from where I stood on 43 East 51st Street in Bayonne, New Jersey, Hudson County.  Unlike you, who grew up in the exotics of Spain who were rarely afforded such a beautiful, blissfull, lovely sight as the blues of the Meditteranean Seas.  I, unlike you, was given the afforded pleasure of seeing two of the most extraodrinary, exciting, beautiful and most fascinating structure of the modern times in my own backyard whilst swimming my grandparents' swimming pool. 

  Tania, or whoever you are, you might have conned many into believing your lies, but you will not cheat me out of my positive childhood of having to go into my own backyard and see those magnificent silver towers hover over me in the distance.  It's tragic and sad you did not get to see them as I did very frequently as a little girl, but it sickens me that you pretended to be one of us who has suffered like I have.  I miss those towers over the horizon of the New York City skyline as much as I miss my grandparents tremendously.  You duped so many, yet you still think of yourself as one.  However, you are definitely not one of us.  You are a sham!  A dupe!  A total lie!  Stop believing in your lies and start in believing in your true self, for what you are, for the liar you are.  You were never, ever, part of this terrible tragedy that has affected my country.  You would like to think so, but you're believing your own lies.  It may have not have happened to, but it happened to my country.  We were affected directly, you were not whatsoever.  You might like to think so, but that is something you, your delusions and God will have to contend with.

  I am extrodinarily affected by what happened on 9/11/2001 immensely and it has affected me on my own mentality.  I cannot look at the skyline of New York City the same way, not without tears.  It makes me sad, very sad, to see the two Silver Castles (as I referred to them) missing from them.  This Tuesday, September 11th, 2012, I will be in Liberty State Park standing there in tears remembering how, as a little girl, my grandparents would take me there to look at them and admire at how they dominated the skies.  However, I will be in tears.