Real Talk with Rose

So, as usual, I have zero strategy when it comes to blog post topics and I figured this week I’d do something a little different and instead of talking about random things in the world, I’d talk about the best thing in the world — myself.

Jk, jk of course. Obviously the best thing in the world is a perfectly warm and fresh street churro or the mysteriously delicious dollar pizza you used to be able to find in NYC but hey, it’s what I know the best at least. I mean, I’d like to think so anyway. I’ve always been a weirdly introspective person even as a youngin so I’d hope that after nearly 27 years of existence I’d have learned SOMETHING by now.

Since at this point in time about half of you readers are my direct friends and/or family, I doubt any of these things will surprise you and the rest of you probably have a decent sense of who I am as a person by now so don’t hold your breath for anything particularly juicy. Anyway, here goes:

Fun Facts about Rose:

1. I am a tall person.
   Not like, tall enough to be a pigeonholed into an exciting career in professional sports or modeling, but tall enough that if I had put in effort earlier in life it would have been at least possible. Like, 95th percentile instead of 99th ya know? This is a common theme in my life — standing out enough to not be outstanding when compared to the TRULY outstanding. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining here. If I was actually outstanding, I would have a much harder time living the life of moderate laziness and comfortable mediocrity (technically a lie, but it doesn’t feel like a lie) that I so enjoy.
2. I hate when people have certain expectations of me.
   This is sort of untrue, as I also love/need to know my boundaries in pretty much every aspect of life. The idea of “limitless” is absolutely terrifying to me. Maybe I’m not wording this right. I just can’t stand getting comments like, “Oh you’re so ___, why aren’t you doing __??”. I know they mean it from a good place and I can certainly understand their confusion since my (career) path has been more nonlinear than I thought. And I know they’re probably just being curious about how I ended up where I ended up. But some part of me feels that phrasing it in such a way implies that I should be doing whatever it is they are surprised I’m not. And fuck that.
3. I am a huge lover of fan-created content.
   Fan art, fan fiction, cosplay, whatever, I love it all. It’s amazing how many talented artists are out there and in my experience, creating content for a fandom they love is often a gateway into even more amazing original work. I’m not a contributor to this space (so don’t bother trying to look for my fanfiction.net account or anything) but I’m a major consumer in my spare time. I owe this mostly to some family friends that introduced me to Sailor Moon (and Sailor Moon fanfiction) at the tender age of like…ten. That spurred on a huge interest in anime and manga (other than Sailor Moon, my firsts were InuYasha and Card Captor Sakura*) and opened a whole new world to me. You know that feeling when you read a great book or see an awesome movie and you’re like, damn it sucks that this is over? Well, my friend, it doesn’t have to be! Tons of people out there are continuing the story or re-imagining it in fun new ways. Granted, there are also a lot of very new artists out there who are still working on developing their craft (yes, I am being overly nice here, but I don’t want to be responsible for crushing dreams), but there are others whose work has been actually published. Send me any recs if you got ’em!
4. I can speak Spanish?
   Sort of, I mean like, my family is Cuban/Spanish (aka I’m “Hispanic” but I look white) so my accent isn’t quite as gringo as it could be and when I hang out with enough of my relatives I can actually remember words and I can generally understand what is being said. Spoke Spanish mostly with my grandmother when I was little and I would function just fine if you dropped me in Spain (my parents did for two years so that’s probably why I can speak it decently at all) but don’t ask me to debate politics or discuss my favorite tree with anyone. Sorry, this one isn’t that interesting.
5. I have a lot of random interests
   I’ve never been a person who was good at being obsessed with one thing or who ever had like, a singular goal or life passion. This explains why I still feel like I have no idea what I want to do (or am currently doing) with my life. It’s not that I’ve never been able to have an intense focus or obsession with anything, but rather that those moments have been kind of brief and I quickly moved on to being obsessed with the next thing. It’s like going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole — you meant to wiki that one thing you couldn’t remember and then all of a sudden you’re learning about where the word “slalom” came from.My most-watched TV shows include everything from Criminal Minds to Pitbulls and Parolees to HGTV to Planet Earth. My typical meals might include a quesadilla with a side of veggie dumplings. My academic interests include biology (oh hey bachelor’s degree), psychology, philosophy, environmental science, and recently how to grow enough food to survive climate change. Mostly I think this is good, because it means I can talk to pretty much anyone and find something about what they do or who they are that is interesting to me. Sometimes I think it’s bad, because it means I can’t focus on my actual job and start a nonsense blog instead of doing the work I should be doing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6. I obviously can talk a lot or this blog post wouldn’t be so damn long.
   Family, I want you to know I love you and all of this is 100% your fault. With the possible exception of #3.

So there you have it. Some fun facts about me. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode of me using this blog like a personal diary, if not, leave me a comment and tell me what to write about next week. I might listen, and I might not! You never know. Life is full of excitement.