The streets
of Dublin City on Saturday 28th of June, witnessed 40.000 people in the 
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| Comunion boy |
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| 1st Modelling shoot |
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| On top of his game |
Because no one is perfect and nothing is perfect, we have had our ups and downs, we have been through a lot as individuals and as a couple, but we have managed to stay together because we love each other so much. We have tried to respect and understand each other, which is not always an easy task, but we have tried and achieved. We have grown together as people and as human beings and have had amazing adventures together. We have been naughty together and have had great fun. He is there for me, I am there for him. The reason we are together is - and I can say it from the bottom of my heart - because of the magic of love, love is magical, well it has been for the two of us. |
| My man's classic look |
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| Wedding invitation |
I have reached over 5000 views - in just 3 months - and I would like to say a
huge thank you to everyone who has been supporting me. Your support is
invaluable and I cannot Thank you enough!
When I was working in Sandymount, I became friendly with an
adorable old lady who used to come to the salon every week. Very stylish,
polite and lovely, we built up a strong customer/client relationship that went
beyond talking about hair. She told me a lot of things about her personal life
and so did I. She, like me, loves red wine and of course we kept comparing
tastes of our beloved red wine with each other. If she had tried a new red,
she’d recommend it to me and vice versa. If she’d tried one that she didn’t
like, she’d say it to me and vice versa. As you can see red wine was very
recurrent in our conversations. By the way, I have to say that I miss her a lot
and miss our lovely chats.
In Venezuela, when it comes to achievements, the “before and
after” plays a huge role and more so when it is in relation to physical
attributes, we tend to be a vain country! Well we have won 6 Miss Worlds, 7 Miss Universes and a few Mr
Internationals”. Trying to look physically well is a “must”. If you do
something to improve your physical qualities – dieting to lose weight, going to
the gym, doing yoga etc…this is regarded as “an achievement” and when you
achieve your goal, we will reinforce the way you “were or looked” in order to
enhance even more the way you “are and look” now as a result of your efforts
and commitment, simple? Not that simple when you’re in Ireland and end up
making someone cry for trying to give them my “Venezuelan compliment”. A girl I know when through a good diet in order
to lose weight and as a result looked good. One day we got together with a
group of other people, including John my partner, in the middle of our drinks I
told her, thinking that it was going be the compliment of her life “You are
looking great, well done on the diet and losing weight because you were very
big” and she started crying which I couldn’t understand why, she was wearing
sunglasses and I could see the tears streaming down her face, she was very
upset. Of course, John was very annoyed with me for my “imprudence”. I got even
more confused because to me it’s a total “compliment”. To make things worse and
for her to cry more I said to John, “but what do you mean John when you have
also said that she was very big”. The whole thing did not make sense to me.
Anyway we eventually left. I remember that on my way home I had to ring my best
friend Daniela from Venezuela, who lives in Orlando and who is the vainest girl
I’ve ever known, and told her what happened and her reaction was “what? So your
friend is not taking your compliment that she looks amazing now, she is
concentrated on the way she was” and I screamed “Exactly!” Let’s put it this
way, Daniela years ago went through liposuction to make her belly flatter,
because she thought she had a little bit of a belly, after the operation, she
looked even more amazing and she would expect people to compliment her by
telling her she used to have a belly, which we all did because the bigger the
belly she used to have, the bigger the compliment because of the sense of
achievement after. Days later, one of the girls who was at the party and
witnessed what happen said to me “Marlon you give a compliment and should of
left it like that, you don’t mention how we used to be like”. Oh ok, it didn’t
make sense to me, still doesn’t, but that’s the way here in Ireland. Lesson
learnt: Compliment people on how they look now, don’t dare to mention yesterday
or tomorrow, but only NOW!
I was kindly invited to this party by someone I barely knew
and after this incident I never heard from them again. I arrived at the party
expecting to have the time of my life, ready to rock, mingling with the crowd
which was mainly puffs. There was a group which I thought were interesting and
I joined them, they were talking about the way people look with age, now at this
stage we were quite drunk and this particular young camp guy turned to me and
asked “How old do you think I am” and I said “well it’s hard to say
because your face is plastered with make-up
and I can’t see your face properly, but I could say that you are around 29” he
had a hissy fit and went “oh my god” and
started crying awwwwwwwkkkkkwwwward and I asked “are you OK, what’s wrong?”, he
goes “you just told me I look 29 and I am only 19” and I said “yes you asked me
so I don’t see what the big deal is” Everybody at the group were disgusted by
the fact that I made him cry guessing his age, but he bloody asked me. Some of
the other pufters verbally attacked me saying that how dare you, how could you
say he looked 29 when he is only 19. I kept saying “he asked me” and they said
you don’t know that in this country you don’t tell a person age and I went
again “but he asked me” and the person kept insisting “but even if he asked,
you shouldn’t have said 29” so I said (and this question prompted the party’s
organiser to ask me to leave) “You’re
telling me that in this country if you are a 100 years and even if somebody
asks I have to say that they look 12”. On the Monday, I sent a thank you text
to the person who organised the party for inviting me. This was around 7 years
ago and never got a reply, oops. 
of the girls had bought a
blue-sequence dress for a night out, it was an awful thing and she was asking
the girls what they thought of the dress, they thought the dress was, “nice”, “lovely”,
“pretty” etc… I wasn’t there when she was being given “these compliments”. I
came to the room as she was showing the dress off, and I said “that’s a nice
dress, you bought it for your granny? She is going love it as the colour and the
sequence represent her age very well” and the whole room went quiet. One of the
girls jumped in breaking the silence “Marlon she bought the dress for herself”
and I turned to the girl and I said “did you really? You’re going to look old
in it”. She left the staff room with a sad face and went to the shop and
changed the dress. The annoying moral of this story in particular is that one
of the girls, hours later, said “Marlon fair play to you to say that the dress wasn’t
nice, we all thought the same, but we couldn’t tell her” and I thought in my
head “she needs better friends! What they were saying to her was bullshit. Time
passed and somebody else bought a new dress and she was asking in the staff
room what they thought, when my earlier victim popped up and said “Don’t ask us,
go and ask Marlon he will tell you the truth” . To this date, she doesn’t know
that all those telling her the blue dress was “pretty” actually thought it wasn’t,
but couldn’t tell her. She will soon find out if she gets to read this blog.
Gas!
If she didn’t exist, we would have created one because we
need her, life needs her because she is like an everlasting celebration to the
simple things in life.
I arrived in Dublin airport the 9th of June 2003,
with my Venezuelan passport, very little money, a small suitcase with my
clothes and a huge suitcase that contained a bundle of dreams and hopes. When I
approached immigration my heart was pounding, I don’t know how I managed to
maintain my composure myself and not to give away sings of my nervousness. I
was asked the usual questions and I told them I was coming on holidays. I had a
month plane ticket, the officer checked my documents and said “Welcome to
Dublin” and stamped my passport for a 3 months stay. 
Jennifer Lopez, or JLo, is a huge female icon in our Latin American
culture, not only for what she has achieved professionally, but also for her sexy
big ass. Women love her and want to have a bum like hers, not to mention the
dirty thoughts she awakens in men because of it. I have friends back home who
would go to the gym and try to work out their arses off to have one like hers.
If you say to a girl, “oh my god you have a big bum” you are giving them the
best compliment ever and her working out achievements would have been
fulfilled. I did not know in Ireland
having a “huge bum” was such an offence and of course I ended up offending someone.
This girl is very slim and in my opinion had a nice big bum. One day, thinking
I was giving her the compliment of her life. I said “oh my god, look at your
bum is huge and lovely” and with an unfriendly face, she says: “thanks Marlon for telling
me I’m fat”. In my head I couldn’t understand why she thought I was calling her
“fat”, when JLo in Latin America is regarded as one of the sexiest women alive.
It took me a few years to realise that there will never ever be an “Irish JLo”.
In Ireland having a big sexy bum is a no no.
In Venezuela if you
have white skin you are rather popular, dark skin is a no. I wasn't in Dublin even
a year when this happened, a girl I knew and who had (according to my
Venezuelan taste) a lovely white skin, one day I met her by chance, and said
"Hello how are you? I haven't seen you in a while. Oh my god you look
great and look at your skin is even whiter since the last time I saw you"
Her forehead frowned and she said "Thanks Marlon for pointing that I have
a pale skin" and I said "Yes, it's very pale and white, but
lovely" and she goes quite serious "Well thanks again, I spent 40
minutes and 50 euro this morning in the tanning shop getting my tan done
because I am going out tonight" and in my head I went "Oops". I
never saw her again. She probably drowned in her spray tan.
I grew up seeing my
sisters, nieces, cousins being pregnant so in my family there are more babies
than stars in the sky. I saw so many of my friends being pregnant, too. All these
women, family and friends and even Venezuelan women in general carry a sense of
pride when pregnant and their bellies are growing. I even remember one of my good friends when
she found out she was pregnant, she could not wait for her belly to grow. So
she would buy tight dresses in order to show her belly off. There is a Saturday
TV program that near Mother's Day they had a competition on that consists of measuring
the size of pregnant women bellies. The prize the winner gets is bigger than
her belly. Can you imagine the thrill of the winner being rewarded for having a
huge pregnant belly? It is a massive compliment to say to a Venezuelan pregnant
girl "oh my god, your belly is growing", because the bigger the belly
the better, meaning that the baby is growing healthy and is going to be a big healthy
baby. I know you can already see where this going. In one of my previous jobs a
girl fell pregnant and of course like every human pregnant being, her belly was
growing. As a symbol of respect and compliment, one day I made the "mistake" of
saying "Oh look at your belly is growing, you're getting bigger" She
nearly choked. She nearly had the baby
right there in front of me. It would have been a premature baby caused by the
disgust of my comment. She even nearly started crying and I thought "Jasus
her hormones must be all over the place that she is nearly crying because of my
compliment" Let's put it this way, I have never said anything like that ever
again when I have seen an Irish pregnant
girl. Even though I think they’re glowing because their bellies growing
beautifully big, I just bite my tongue and keep the compliment to myself.
