Juan of Words

Our First Official Meet Up

¿Qué les puedo decir? Tonight was everything I expected and much, much, more!  To all of you who made it out for the First Official Juan of Words Meet Up, that’s sounds kind of silly in writing, but it’s late y no puedo pensar en algo más ahorita, so perdon… thank you very much!

We met up at the “Green Lantern” Advance Screening in Houston, and really had a great time hanging out, albeit kind of briefly, before and after the movie.  It was in 3D, something we were all very pleasantly surprised with since we hadn’t been made aware of this until the last minute, and all in all it was a pretty good movie.  I could go on and on, pero mejor aquí están las fotos.

Alyssa, Isidoro, JJ, Jacob y yo

With my buddy & compadre, Paco

Michelle, pues yo otra vez, y Sarah

Rosemary, me, and Paco. Too bad the pic is fuzzy...

Con Rocio.

And of course, with my wife Anjelica

Official Rules: Green Lantern Advance Screening Houston

So here are the Official Rules.  As I said before, me encantaría llevarlos a todos conmigo, pero desafortunadamente there are only a certain number of passes.  So to make it fair for everyone, here’s what you need to do to win:

1. Make sure you’re available on Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. to attend the advance screening (this is really important since not everyone who wants to go will win tickets)

2. Leave a comment on this post with your name as it appears on Twitter or Facebook, and/or, if you want to, with your email address, so that I can get in contact with you.

3. The DEADLINE for entry will be Monday, June 13, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.

4. I will collect all the names posted on THIS BLOG ENTRY (not the previous one) and use Random.org to pick the winners, for lack of a better word, randomly.

5. Then I will contact you directly to let you know you won by Tuesday, June 14^th at 10:00 a.m.

I’ll be at the advance screening of the movie also, and would love to greet everyone personally… maybe take a couple of pictures for a later blog.  Of course, only if you’re okay with that.  So, there you go, those are the Official Rules.

Our Movie Night is going to be fun!

¡Suerte!

© 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Green Lantern Advance Screening Houston

© 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You remember those knock off ‘G.I. Joe’ figurines you could get at the grocery store for a quarter?  As a kid, those were my heroes.  My brothers and I would spend hours throwing those little green men around with their little plastic parachutes to see how fast they could fly into our make-believe battles and combats.  We’d hold them by the tip of their parachutes, lift our arms up as high as we could, and simultaneously drop them to see whose would make it down to the ground first.  Whosever did got dibs on choosing one of our toy cars first, for their transportation.

We were pretty simple boys.

Edgar, on the other hand, looked at the package of knock-off military figurines I bought him and asked what is that? Even after I explained it to him, how much fun my brothers and I had with them, he seemed a little confused.  Still, he took the toys and played with them, for all of one day, before he was no longer amused.  He’s much more of a comic book hero kid, he says.

He really is.

We can’t walk into any store without him finding the nearest comic-book-action-figure toy and pleading with us to buy it for him, his bedroom is plastered with posters of them all over the wall, he likes playing with them in the bathtub (he’d kill me if he knew I shared that with you… so shhhh), he can’t watch a commercial for any new comic book hero movie without saying I want to watch that, and when we pick up a happy meal for him, he doesn’t care about the food inside, all he wants to know is what super hero it comes with.  In the middle of his movie he’ll come running out of his room all excited to tell us what’s going on: it was awesome… this guy was trying to catch (insert action hero name here) and then he just turned around and knocked him across the room! We smile and say okay, Edgar… finish watching the rest of your movie.

He’s not the only one, which is why I was so excited to get the chance to offer passes to the Houston advance screening of the “Green Lantern” next week!  It will be the first local screening of the movie based on the DC Comic’s fearless intergalactic guardian, which opens nationwide next Friday.

I know a lot of you are fans and are looking forward to the movie, so give me an idea of how you think would be the best way to give away these tickets.  Por mi, yo los invitaría a todos, pero I don’t think they’d have enough room for all us at the AMC Studio 30… LOL!  I’ll do another post very, very soon (like probably later tonight) to let you know how we’ll be selecting the ticket winners, but I do want your input to make this as fair as possible, so please leave your comments below!

It’s going to be fun!

Los Hombres También Lloran

Y ahora sí, como dice la canción: “y no me aguito… ¡nomás me acuerdo!”

Man Tears by Artemis

In truth, there have only been a few times that I’ve seen my father cry.  A couple of times of joy, another handful of pura tristeza.  He’s always been a man of strength and bravery to me…  the one with arms of steel and shoulders capable of taking on the world.  When I think of him, instinctively my heart goes soft and something inside of me just makes it unavoidable to want to cry, at least a little bit for all the little things I think I know now that I didn’t know back then.

Ahora que yo soy el hombre de la casa it’s easier to recognize the hows and whys.  The things I hated in him once I now see and appreciate in myself.

The same things Edgar will probably grow up hating in me too.

La cosa es, that until I was teenager, I really did believe the myth that real men don’t cry.  That it was a sign of weakness, a symbol of having been defeated, to let even one single tear run down my face.  Even worse, to do so in the presence of others, because it made me look pathetic and stupid to them and to myself.  As far as I can remember though, nobody ever told me that “real men don’t cry.”  I guess I just assumed so because nunca in my childhood did I presence my father cry.  Maybe he did and I just didn’t pay attention… estaba demasiado ingenuo para entender. No sé.

The truth is we do, and sometimes it’s even good for us.  Personally, les puedo decir that up to now there have only been a few times when I’ve literally balled my eyes out, sobbing uncontrollably as an adult for things I literally had no control over.  Those memories are still too painful and fresh to talk about, but the happy tears I’ve shed… those, have left a lasting imprint on my soul.

I want to make father cry again.  Not tears of sadness, but tears of joy, because in the end he was the one that taught me this very important life lesson: que los hombres también lloran.

I hope I can do the same for Edgar.

Los dejo con la canción que fue la inspiración de este post.  Se llama “El Hombre Que Más Te Amo” y la canta Chente.  El otro día la escuche por primera vez en mi camioneta y al escuchar la letra se me salieron una cuantas lagrimillas porque me hizo pensar en mi padre.  Espero les guste también.

Would You Vote For Me?

My blog has been nominated for an award!!  I’m so excited!

So my wife was out to lunch with one of her sisters and she came across this contest, the 2011 Houston Web Awards.  Without telling me, she went ahead and nominated my humble little home on the net for one of the categories: Best Personal Blog, and well, the news was very well received when she finally sent me an email with the link to her nomination.  I haven’t the slightest idea how fierce the competition is, or if Juan of Words actually has any chance of winning in this category, or any other one for that matter, but just the idea of gaining any recognition for all my hard work is quite flattering and exciting to say the least.

And here is where YOU come in… LOL!  I generally don’t like to ask for things like this, but hell, I really would like to win!  It would be fun.  So, if you would PLEASE, follow the steps below and vote for my blog as the “Best Personal Blog” in the 2011 Houston Web Awards (ANYONE CAN VOTE)!

Desde lugeo ¡muchisimas gracias!

Step 1: Click to Enlarge

Step 1:  Click Here to access the 2011 Houston Web Awards Official website.

Step 2: Click to Enlarge

Step 2:  Next, click on the phrase BEST PERSONAL BLOG (highlighted here for your convenience).

Step 3: Click to Enlarge

Step 3:  Then enter your First and Last Name, and your Zip Code… an email is optional, but not required for a vote.

Step 4: Click to Enlarge

Step 4:  Next, find the category for “Best Personal Blog” and enter my blog address www.juanofwords.com (TIP: it’s category # 9).

Step 5: Click to Enlarge

Step 5:  And Finally, click through the “next” buttons at the bottom of the page until you reach the submit page (2 pages away) and click “Submit.”

And that’s it!  Nothing will be left but to find out the results on June 30, 2011.  Thank you all for taking the time to read this and for your continued support and friendship over the course of the last two years of this blog.

¡Los quiero un chingo!

El Pleito De Los Trastes

The Age Old Battle

It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are in your relationship, or how much or little you do outside of this highly detested chore, the infamous battle over who’s washing the dishes is bound to come up at some point during your “living together,” “marital,” or “shacked up” relationship (I know the first and last expressions are virtually the same, but I like saying shacked up for some reason).  You see in this day and age when both our sexes are virtually considered “equal,” the responsibility of turning on the faucet y ponerse a lavar los trastes is no longer just considered “women’s work.”

Sorry guys, but that’s the world we live in.

And I know many of you are probably thinking why bother with washing dishes by hand if there are those magical little things called dishwashers nowadays, my younger brother tells me this all the time, but in our household we don’t have a dishwasher.  We had one until we unplugged it from the wall, dragged it across our kitchen and living room floors, and sat it outside for a few days, okay several days, before we gave it away.  Neither one of us grew up on dishwashers and while we are familiar now with how to use one, it stills seems a little contraindios to us.

So usually the argument goes like this: Are you going to wash the dishes?  No, are you?  No, I worked all day and don’t want to wash the dishes.  Well I washed the dishes the last several times.  And what’s wrong with that?  Nothing, but when was the last time you scrubbed the toilet, cleaned the bathtub, washed all the clothes, or even cooked anything for yourself?  I work all day!  So do I… just because it’s housework doesn’t mean it’s not work.  Lava los trastes.  Tu lavalos. We can go on like this for a while… a good long while, until finally one or the other concedes and just washes the damn dishes.

In reality, it’s not that big of a deal at all.  It takes just a couple of minutes to do, and in an ideal world, I guess, either party would just take turns doing this chore, until one of the kids was old enough to do it all of the time.  I knew I wanted more kids for a reason!  I say that knowing completely well we will continue battling it out over who’s going to wash the dishes, because, well, part of having another able bodied, responsible adult in the household is that: having someone to argue with about the most menial of tasks, someone else who is just as committed and responsible for caring about the little things that we don’t have a choice but to do.

In our case, por ese versito we each had to repeat “for better or for worse, as long as we both shall live.”

DISCLAIMER: No actual ‘trastes’ were harmed in the writing of this blog.