Public Ponder

Birthdays and Autism: National Diego’s Birthday Awareness Day

If you’ve read anything about Diego, you know he’s keen on birthdays, all birthdays, but especially his own. Diego's birthday fixation is unusual, not only in its intensity but also given his autism. ...Read More →

Lessons from 2022: From the Pathetic to the Great

I had a hard time deciding how to structure this list. My first thought was to start with the great and end with the pathetic, to then conclude with how I would do better or different in 2023. But the...Read More →

15 Reasons I’m Grateful to be Venezuelan

Last year I started my very own Thanksgiving tradition, though I didn’t know it yet. I posted a list of random things I was thankful for -exactly 52, for no other reason than the fact that I was 52....Read More →

The Reason I Will Never Have a Dog

I’m obsessed with dogs. Specifically, I’m obsessed with how crazy people are about their dogs. In a way, it has come as a relief to finally learn why I’ve never understood the dog-human attachment: I ...Read More →

Why I Write

By the time I picked up running fifteen years ago, I already had a special relationship with words and language. In college, one of my majors was French and I’d also gotten a graduate degree in translation...Read More →

It Was NOT a Shotgun Wedding

Cesar and I were married just nine months after we met. It was not a shotgun wedding, as we reckon some assumed. We were madly in love. But we didn’t marry for love only. We married because any real...Read More →

Motherhood Changes Everything and No One Notices

Some experiences are a shock to the system, a kick in the butt. My butt was kicked hard, unexpectedly, and decisively on Wednesday, January 13, 1994, at 5:38 pm. That's the date and time I gave birth ...Read More →

Breastfeeding: My First Parenting Challenge

Pre-pregnancy, I was blessed with lovely breasts the firmness of ripe avocados. A few days after Diego was born, they were more like watermelons, so huge a person standing behind me could see a significant...Read More →