Mariano Velez

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  • A Writers’ Room with No Showrunner and Infinite Coffee

    I sometimes wonder if our dreams are just a carbon-based, innate AI running a late-night Netflix marathon in our skulls. Think about it: all day long, your brain collects data—faces, fears, half-heard conversations, that embarrassing thing you did in seventh grade—and then, at night, it’s like, “Great. Let’s remix all this into a cinematic experience.”…

  • So I like Coffee and Quiet Moments! What are ya gonna do!?

    Quiet mornings are sacred. That’s where thoughts line up, memories wander in, and the day hasn’t started asking for things yet. It’s the opposite of chaos. And I’ve always had a soft spot for those in-between moments—the ones that feel a little like the 1980s, before the radio clicked on and the house officially woke…

  • The Art of School Discipline

    (Or: Why Your Kid Probably Isn’t a Villain, But Also Isn’t Perfect Either) There’s a part of me that’s always been a storyteller. I’ve spent years watching the chaos of childhood—my own and others’—and turning it into little stories that make sense of the messy, funny, absurd moments of growing up. I like noticing the…

  • Like the moon in broad daylight…

    Visible, yet unnoticed.Present, yet somehow distant.It hangs there quietly, pale against the blue sky,as if it doesn’t quite belong to the hour it inhabits. There is something aching about it—a reminder of night in a world that has already moved on to morning.A soft glow that no one asked for,a light that wasn’t meant for…

  • Longing…

    Longing for human touch begins as a subtle stir beneath the skin, a tremor of sensation that no words can fully name. It is in the brush of your own fingertips along your arms, in the ghost of a hand that might have held yours, in the quiet ache that rises where warmth is missing.…

  • The Noise of Learning

    I used to think learning was supposed to be quiet.Neat. Orderly. Predictable. But in my world, it never sounded that way. It sounded like pencil scratches in the margins of a notebook, screws rattling on a garage floor, the click of a camera shutter, the uneven notes of a song I hadn’t yet learned how…

  • Several Hundred Words Later

    We’ve all been there. Not as heroes, not as villains—just as silent witnesses to someone else’s emotional eruption. That strange moment when you realize you’re no longer part of a conversation, but the audience to a performance you never bought tickets for. You don’t interrupt.You don’t argue. You simply stand there, nodding politely, mentally taking…

  • Alone, But With Company

    You can be in a room full of people and feel like the only inhabitant of a private planet. Not lonely—oh no, that would require longing—but singular, spectacularly self-contained. Sometimes I wonder: is my body here, and my mind elsewhere? Or my mind here, and my body wandering off somewhere? I can’t remember; I always…

  • Slowly, Almost Politely… Nobody Tells You This

    Most of us don’t notice the moment when life starts changing. There’s no announcement, no warning label, no ceremony. One day you’re just living—busy, distracted, convinced you’ve got plenty of time. And then, slowly, almost politely, something shifts. Nothing dramatic. Nothing alarming. Just enough to make you pause and think, Huh… that’s new. They say…

  • The Algorithm on Main Street

    In Calexico, stories used to travel slowly. They moved on bicycles and sneakers, through chain-link fences and across dusty backyards. They passed through kitchens where tortillas puffed on comales and radios argued with each other in English and Spanish. By the time a story reached Main Street, it had already changed shape—edited by laughter, softened…

  • On Being 55

    Ah, 55. A milestone just for being a milestone.Double nickels. What used to be the speed limit on most major freeways—which tells you exactly how long it’s been since anyone cared what the speed limit was. Fifty-five is the age where the world quietly, officially reclassifies you. You’re now a senior citizen—not because you feel…

  • Crackers With My Coffee

    I don’t drink coffee.I enter into a legally binding relationship with it. Coffee is not a beverage.It’s a survival tool.A personality stabilizer.A public safety measure. Without it, I am slow.I forget words.I stare into space like a Windows 95 screensaver. With it?I can solve problems.Remember passwords.Pretend I like mornings. And the crackers?Those are not a…

  • The Wisdom of One Flame

    I started with one candle. A good candle. A respectable candle. The kind that understands boundaries and clocks out at a reasonable hour. Then I lit both ends. At first, it felt efficient—heroic, even. Look at me, doubling productivity. Twice the light. Twice the ambition. Somewhere, a motivational poster nodded in approval. But candles, it…

  • That Guy In The Mirror.

    The inner voice.The alter ego. Sometimes the lone voice of reason.Often the reason we do stupid shit. He’s the first person you ever open up to—long before you open up to anyone else.The rehearsal audience.The test kitchen. You admit things to him you haven’t even learned how to say out loud yet.You bounce ideas off…

  • Listening and Observing (I Promise This Matters)

    Listening and observing—similar, but not the same. I don’t know why this has been living rent-free in my head, but it’s been there long enough that I should probably offer it coffee.  Which I have. Repeatedly. Ironically, this mental detour has forced me to listen to myself and observe the outcomes. So far, the results…