And then. . .

I had to Google the word "multitasking" to double check whether it was hyphenated. At this moment I have six windows open. I will inevitably flip back to another tab to check something. I just got a text message from Sarah. Of course I will check it. A few months ago my Tio came over to help D and I with moving some things. He came in sat and started to talk to me. D sat on the other couch trying to finish some work on his Ipad. My laptop say on the coffee table. We were both facing out screens.        "So mija how is everything?" Tio asked.          "Good, Tio. Hang on. I just need to post this." I said without looking up at him.        "Man, all you guys do is stare at those screens. Why don't you put them down," he said reaching for my laptop.        Tio was demanding my attention. My work was demanding my attention. The T.V. was on in the ...

The past few weeks El Paso has been blanketed in gray bellied clouds and sheets of rain. The typically dry desert land has gulped and drank, but it's had it's fill and now the water is overflowing into the streets and flooding parts of highways with brown tinted running rivers. This is what happens when houses are built in the armpits of mountains, and the city hasn't planned for proper water run off. Even though all of this has happened and chunks of rocks have floated away from one lawn to the other, I smile. I smile as my feet get soggy, as the drops run off my peach anchor printed umbrella and down my arm, and as I listen to it with my window wide open inviting in the smell. In traffic, I drive cautiously and am thankful for all the years I lived in a rainy city and learned the do's and don't's, unlike many of my fellow commuters. I smile at the green vines dancing and twisting up and out in the front of my house the more they are showered in the...