Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Free Flan (in an Aluminum Circular Thing)
Free Flan (in an Aluminum Circular Thing)
I have never been so nervous buttering a roll.
One thing that you learn as a student is that you go where free food is served. Being a student means being broke. Broke becomes your common denominator. Every student is broke, from all levels. Some are broke because they’ve used up their own funds and they don’t have access to more. Some are broke they have access to more. Some are broke because they have angered their parents and a hold was put on their trust fund. Regardless, broke is the bottom line for most students. Thus, when you see an event that advertises free food, this means that you should be there 10 minutes before they even open the doors. Help set up the event if they’ll let you. Get elected to an e-board to ensure that you can get the best food possible at those events.
So imagine in summer, my excitement for invited to 2, yes, 2, conferences that featured free breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I am currently at the second of these events. For some reason, it occurred to me that I am here for much different reasons. Most of the people that are here are concerned solely about the topic at hand. Yeah, all the issues matter. But I’m hungry.
The problem with being this hungry in a group full of stuffed shirts is that sometimes, I forget the manners that I learned. It’s not so much that I forget them so much as I am too focused on not being obvious that I make myself paranoid.
Of course, what adds to my paranoia is when I am not on the registration list. Now, this happened for both conferences. I think that the conference people must have reasoned that I am a student, I must be here primarily to save $10 from buying meals for myself, so it doesn’t matter, if I don’t have a name tag. Hey, you save, I save, we all save. Yeah!
But this conference slopped a big heap of insecurity onto my plate. It might have been the fact that I arrived at lunch and I couldn’t find the people with whom I was supposed to sit. That 5 minute discomfort gave me a new perspective about this whole thing, and what was happening here.
The stuffed shirts were looking at me, wondering who or what dragged me into the luncheon. These are people that normally, as I say in my head, I would “skate right past”, but in this moment, I am feeling a little vulnerable. I need to them to let me feel ok while I attempt to maintain my dignity and effortless pilfer food while smiling and making small talk to hundreds. And after you realize that, there is this small moment when you feel like, was this worth the discomfort? Should I just work more so that I don’t have to endure situations like these anymore?
And then your stomach rumbles, and you remember the urgency of this situation. This is good food, not some slop, leftovers from three days ago, or a bed of cholesterol from your favorite fast food chain. This is good, decent, recently cooked, professionally served food, with dishes that you can throw out (meaning that you don’t have to wash any of them).There are people here on hand to clean up behind you. You don’t have a lot of decent food, let alone food in general as an undergraduate, or as someone starting out on their own, and thus, you have to take good food when it’s available. Right now, it won’t matter if the president of the universe were looking at me, I would still be slopping a piece of chicken onto this plate, and looking for the free soda and roll and whatever else I can fit onto the plate, and that I can eat in one setting.
(This makes me sound like I am a glutton. I really don’t have a big appetite, but when you are trying to eat so that you won’t be hungry for a few hours, a bizarre logic takes over that says that if you eat to your heart’s content now, that contentment will assuage your hunger later.)
So you take your food, sit at the table, listen to the speaker, and learn something hopefully along the way.
I did just that, and I was really elated to be able to have flan at this event. It seemed like the discomfort that happened a few minutes ago just melted away in the first spoonful. That was until I looked around the table. Everyone else had flan in this nice ceramic type container while I had been given the reject version in an aluminum circular thing. Did I even have a right to let this bother me? Not really, but I felt for a moment like I had been deemed not good enough to have what everyone else had.
I was distracted by the amusing things that were happening on stage. First of all, I misheard a bad orator. I was not sure that they had actually said words in any language, but what I made out from the garble was something about mistreatment by infants. (It's not that the mistreatment of infants is humourous, but it was totally out of context) The sheer thought of this caused me to laugh uncontrollably, inside my head. Laughing inside one’s head is a skill to be mastered if you ever want to succeed in business. You have to keep a straight face but let all of your synapses and your blood vessels and cells laugh themselves into a frenzy which you will call a pleasant smile. This is what you have to do until you can get into the car with your friends and recall the stupidity that you experienced and laugh until you burst your appendix. Added to this list was the sight of the sign language signer that was hired to translate at this event. The effortless bumbling of the speakers at this event gave the signer the worst time. It’s bad enough when you can’t hear someone, but then to also have to try to translate what you didn’t even really hear and try to make it sound in some way feasible to a human mind can cause priceless facial demonstrations of frustration and confusion, as I witnessed at this event. I realized that she was also signing that the person had missed a word or said something inaudible. It was a combination of an on-the-spot speech revision and Mystery Science Theater.
These factors are what allowed me to get past the substandard container of my flan.
Really, though, whatever containers it’s in, free flan is pretty darn good.
I have never been so nervous buttering a roll.
One thing that you learn as a student is that you go where free food is served. Being a student means being broke. Broke becomes your common denominator. Every student is broke, from all levels. Some are broke because they’ve used up their own funds and they don’t have access to more. Some are broke they have access to more. Some are broke because they have angered their parents and a hold was put on their trust fund. Regardless, broke is the bottom line for most students. Thus, when you see an event that advertises free food, this means that you should be there 10 minutes before they even open the doors. Help set up the event if they’ll let you. Get elected to an e-board to ensure that you can get the best food possible at those events.
So imagine in summer, my excitement for invited to 2, yes, 2, conferences that featured free breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I am currently at the second of these events. For some reason, it occurred to me that I am here for much different reasons. Most of the people that are here are concerned solely about the topic at hand. Yeah, all the issues matter. But I’m hungry.
The problem with being this hungry in a group full of stuffed shirts is that sometimes, I forget the manners that I learned. It’s not so much that I forget them so much as I am too focused on not being obvious that I make myself paranoid.
Of course, what adds to my paranoia is when I am not on the registration list. Now, this happened for both conferences. I think that the conference people must have reasoned that I am a student, I must be here primarily to save $10 from buying meals for myself, so it doesn’t matter, if I don’t have a name tag. Hey, you save, I save, we all save. Yeah!
But this conference slopped a big heap of insecurity onto my plate. It might have been the fact that I arrived at lunch and I couldn’t find the people with whom I was supposed to sit. That 5 minute discomfort gave me a new perspective about this whole thing, and what was happening here.
The stuffed shirts were looking at me, wondering who or what dragged me into the luncheon. These are people that normally, as I say in my head, I would “skate right past”, but in this moment, I am feeling a little vulnerable. I need to them to let me feel ok while I attempt to maintain my dignity and effortless pilfer food while smiling and making small talk to hundreds. And after you realize that, there is this small moment when you feel like, was this worth the discomfort? Should I just work more so that I don’t have to endure situations like these anymore?
And then your stomach rumbles, and you remember the urgency of this situation. This is good food, not some slop, leftovers from three days ago, or a bed of cholesterol from your favorite fast food chain. This is good, decent, recently cooked, professionally served food, with dishes that you can throw out (meaning that you don’t have to wash any of them).There are people here on hand to clean up behind you. You don’t have a lot of decent food, let alone food in general as an undergraduate, or as someone starting out on their own, and thus, you have to take good food when it’s available. Right now, it won’t matter if the president of the universe were looking at me, I would still be slopping a piece of chicken onto this plate, and looking for the free soda and roll and whatever else I can fit onto the plate, and that I can eat in one setting.
(This makes me sound like I am a glutton. I really don’t have a big appetite, but when you are trying to eat so that you won’t be hungry for a few hours, a bizarre logic takes over that says that if you eat to your heart’s content now, that contentment will assuage your hunger later.)
So you take your food, sit at the table, listen to the speaker, and learn something hopefully along the way.
I did just that, and I was really elated to be able to have flan at this event. It seemed like the discomfort that happened a few minutes ago just melted away in the first spoonful. That was until I looked around the table. Everyone else had flan in this nice ceramic type container while I had been given the reject version in an aluminum circular thing. Did I even have a right to let this bother me? Not really, but I felt for a moment like I had been deemed not good enough to have what everyone else had.
I was distracted by the amusing things that were happening on stage. First of all, I misheard a bad orator. I was not sure that they had actually said words in any language, but what I made out from the garble was something about mistreatment by infants. (It's not that the mistreatment of infants is humourous, but it was totally out of context) The sheer thought of this caused me to laugh uncontrollably, inside my head. Laughing inside one’s head is a skill to be mastered if you ever want to succeed in business. You have to keep a straight face but let all of your synapses and your blood vessels and cells laugh themselves into a frenzy which you will call a pleasant smile. This is what you have to do until you can get into the car with your friends and recall the stupidity that you experienced and laugh until you burst your appendix. Added to this list was the sight of the sign language signer that was hired to translate at this event. The effortless bumbling of the speakers at this event gave the signer the worst time. It’s bad enough when you can’t hear someone, but then to also have to try to translate what you didn’t even really hear and try to make it sound in some way feasible to a human mind can cause priceless facial demonstrations of frustration and confusion, as I witnessed at this event. I realized that she was also signing that the person had missed a word or said something inaudible. It was a combination of an on-the-spot speech revision and Mystery Science Theater.
These factors are what allowed me to get past the substandard container of my flan.
Really, though, whatever containers it’s in, free flan is pretty darn good.
Walking and Driving While Dark
Walking and Driving While Dark
This section bothers me that I have to write it but at the same time, the more that people know that things like this happen daily might one day make a difference. I couldn’t document a story of my life without including at least a bare bones account of my run-ins with the law.
· I was walking down the street to the bus stop in California and got stopped there twice by policemen, saying that I fit the description of some guy who had passed off a bad check at the bank. I have never seen such a search for someone that passed off a bad check, although in truth, I can’t say that I haven’t either. Regardless, after the second time of showing them my ID and sitting on the sidewalk like a common criminal for them to find out twice that I was not the guy, the police apologized to me and then said that they should give me $5 for my trouble.
· I was followed for 20 minutes down the same road, a road that changes speed limit 5 times, and anyone that is not from the area would not know that. Fortunately, I did, sine I traveled every day to work via this road. When the cop finally pulled me over, I asked him why he had stopped me. He told me that he wanted to make sure that the right people were in his town. I told him that in that case, this wrong person was about to leave his town.
· I got 2 tickets due to Identity Theft (someone used my name when stopped by the police). One time that this happened, I was in California when the ticket was issued and the other time one happened when I was an hour away at work. For the latter ticket, the person’s physical description was of someone 60 pounds lighter than I, with green eyes and an inch shorter than me. The cop who issued me the ticket was present when I was pointing all of this out to the prosecutor, and the cop says, “Oh, I should have caught on to that”. Well, I wished that he had caught on to it before I had to miss time from work and find some town that I have never heard of before.
· I was driving in a lily-white town with a white girl at night, which is always just asking for trouble. I was stopped by a policeman of course. Bravely, I asked the cop why he had stopped me. He told me that I was speeding. I told him that this wouldn’t make any sense because I was lost in a town that I did not know so if anything, I was going too slowly. Then he tried to tell me that he stopped me because I did not have my seat belt. I let him know that I had taken it off so that I could get my wallet out of my book bag in the backseat. Then he told me that my taillight was out. This I could not argue, not because I knew it to be true, but because I could not get out of the car and prove it false at the same time without incurring a beatdown.
It happens to every man of color. It just sucks that when it happens to you.
This section bothers me that I have to write it but at the same time, the more that people know that things like this happen daily might one day make a difference. I couldn’t document a story of my life without including at least a bare bones account of my run-ins with the law.
· I was walking down the street to the bus stop in California and got stopped there twice by policemen, saying that I fit the description of some guy who had passed off a bad check at the bank. I have never seen such a search for someone that passed off a bad check, although in truth, I can’t say that I haven’t either. Regardless, after the second time of showing them my ID and sitting on the sidewalk like a common criminal for them to find out twice that I was not the guy, the police apologized to me and then said that they should give me $5 for my trouble.
· I was followed for 20 minutes down the same road, a road that changes speed limit 5 times, and anyone that is not from the area would not know that. Fortunately, I did, sine I traveled every day to work via this road. When the cop finally pulled me over, I asked him why he had stopped me. He told me that he wanted to make sure that the right people were in his town. I told him that in that case, this wrong person was about to leave his town.
· I got 2 tickets due to Identity Theft (someone used my name when stopped by the police). One time that this happened, I was in California when the ticket was issued and the other time one happened when I was an hour away at work. For the latter ticket, the person’s physical description was of someone 60 pounds lighter than I, with green eyes and an inch shorter than me. The cop who issued me the ticket was present when I was pointing all of this out to the prosecutor, and the cop says, “Oh, I should have caught on to that”. Well, I wished that he had caught on to it before I had to miss time from work and find some town that I have never heard of before.
· I was driving in a lily-white town with a white girl at night, which is always just asking for trouble. I was stopped by a policeman of course. Bravely, I asked the cop why he had stopped me. He told me that I was speeding. I told him that this wouldn’t make any sense because I was lost in a town that I did not know so if anything, I was going too slowly. Then he tried to tell me that he stopped me because I did not have my seat belt. I let him know that I had taken it off so that I could get my wallet out of my book bag in the backseat. Then he told me that my taillight was out. This I could not argue, not because I knew it to be true, but because I could not get out of the car and prove it false at the same time without incurring a beatdown.
It happens to every man of color. It just sucks that when it happens to you.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The Bigger Picture, Part I
I used to work in the fitness industry. This puts me smack dab in the middle of the one of the hottest crazes in this country next to Twitter and Facebook. What people won't do to lose 5, 10 15, lbs. It seems like the closer that they are to their goal, the more insane they get and the greater the lengths to which they will go to get there. Surgery here, diet pill there, 20 trainers, a colon cleaning, green tea, 2 or 3 gallons of water a day, cardio sessions twice a day, and more.
What?
I guess it's a little different for me.
And I have my loving family to thank for this. For their support through the years.
Yes, that was deliberately sardonic.
I was always a chubby kid. At the same time, I had a bunch of allergies when I was young. Add to that the fact that the average person would have thought that I had no immune system. If someone got sick in America, I would catch what they had. I had every upper respiratory problem that you could imagine. One year, I had double pnuemonia, that regressed after subsiding, for about 70 days straight. So, I definitely had my share of problems. These problems also affected the foods that I could tolerate. I was allergic to so many things. I remember having an all over body reaction to Vitamin C pills. Who has an allergic reaction to a Vitamin ? Obviously I did. Besides all the foods that I could not stomach because I just didn't like their taste, I had skin allergies to dairy, and other reactions to lot of other products, like bleached sugar, and more.
So keep this in mind as I explain where my bigger picture started.
One day, my dad took us over my cousin M's house. (The names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent (the innocent being me and the protection is against unnecessary drama).M and his family have a wonderful way of making one feel completely uncomfortable and unaccepted while making it seem that this is done under the guise of hospitality and genuine all-around concern packaged in a box of dirty diapers. Bizarre example? Yes. Undesirable situation? More than yes. He and his family are the type that actually would stop you at a funeral and tell you that they liked your suit. His daughters developed this trait even further, inherited from their mother and their father. This resulted in awkward situations like being at an event for family and friends, and having them scrutinize a younger relative's hair (someone who was 5), asking who cares for her hair and was she going to get a perm... Yes, this is the type of uncomfortable scrutiny that comes with my father's side of the family. Add to this the fact that M made more money than we did, and he never really had any problems flaunting that and making it obvious that he was flaunting it. It's the old mentality from slavery that once we of color have something, we want so to be accepted by the majority, and to give ourselves that validation that not having or not being respected takes away, that we overstate the fact that we have made it, or that we do have something. I cannot blame him in some aspects, because many fall prey to this. Including my father's brother. This is a man who knows that he and I live in the same city, and knows how much I have been struggling, and he would never even lift a single finger to make sure that I am ok. He will though lift his whole hand to pick up his wallet and drive the Range Rover to an expensive meal where he will tell people how much he cares about us. Tell me that one in my good ear, because I don't think that I heard you correctly.
One day, my dad took us over my cousin M's house. Michael and my uncle sequester me in the kitchen where all the kids were going to eat. I remember when I was young, I had this big issue understanding what salad was. That seems funny at first, like the big kid didn't even know what a salad was. What I mean was that in my house, a salad was literally lettuce and dressing, because I couldn't stomach tomatoes and some of the other vegetables that go in salads. So, in my head, salad was lettuce. I had never seen a salad otherwise, so when I saw an actual chef's salad, I was confused. This confusion led to a conversation at me, not with me, since I was 5, that came directly from M and my father's half brother. So, it was something to the effect of that I needed to be eating more salads because I was fat, and I didn't want to be fat when I grow up like others, indicating my parents. If I could ever have any words taken back that were said to me in this lifetime, the words that these two imbeciles said at me would be my choice. Whether they realized it or not, those words framed a life of pain, hurt, guilt, self-hate, disappointment, depression, suicidal thoughts, and ultimately, an eating disorder. The only thing that hurt anyway similarly was my mother's brother-in-law B, who told me that I made up my eating disorder, and that he never remembered my having a problem eating when I was at his house. He is also the person that told me that because of my lifestyle choices, it would be better if I didn't have repast with my family after my father's death. (Repast is a tradition after a funeral for the family of the deceased to convene and eat and comfort each other. People call it different things. We call it repast.) This is the first time in my life that I am actually committing to words what happened. I'm so at the point of tears right now, not because I am a bitch, but because I am so angry, understanding how much pain I endured because of people that don't matter, who I now do not consider as family, who have absolutely no effect on my life. I lost so much time and energy hating myself and the body that I was given instead of having some self-love and being able to sculpt myself earlier into the shape that I wanted, solely because it was my choice. They stole my choice to be healthy physically and mentally, and there is no way that they can ever redeem themselves.
So, at 5, I decided that food was a bad thing, because these gabons who I believed were smart and knew everything because I respected and loved them at the time. This began my 15 year love and hate relationship with food. Inside, I hated the fact that I enjoyed the process of eating. It did not help that I was subjected to my paternal grandmother and aunt growing up, who always somehow each week, brought us back to center about my weight, or my hair, or my clothes. It's funny how these degenerates all have become subject to health problems that most likely arose directly from their eating habits, and also the bile that fills their veins. Knock on wood, I have had the direct opposite effect, but it was really only after freeing myself from any of the constraints of their opinions.
Anyway, I started to like food, and hate food, and then hate that I liked food, and like that I hated food. I went through training myself not to eat in public, especially with my father's family. I dreaded when the waiter or waitress would come to our table. I could not imagine what was going to come out of their mouths about me and how fat I was and change my order or just make fun of me. Crazily enough, all throughout grade school, I think that maybe 7-8 people total made fun of me because of my weight. Not saying that those statements didn't hurt, but they hurt a lot less than family's saying it.
As I got older, I actually prided myself on my ability to go a whole day without eating. That was my secret weight loss plan. Of course, this brought on the closet eating thing. I really tried making myself throw up, but I couldn't get myself to fully do it because as a singer, I had learn that it's detrimental to your vocal cords to have traces of stomach acid on them. (Whether that is true or not, it stopped me from purging for a while.) I also learned how to make myself nauseous by thinking myself sick. I would actually concentrate on being nauseous so that I would not have to purge but I could still throw up. I also did that thing where you chew your food so that you get the taste of it, and then spit it out.
Add to that the fact that these issues with my body gave me a weird combination of confidence and disgust. I was always confident in my intelligence, sense of style, public speaking ability and intelligibility. However, none of this helps any when you are in a high school changing room and you are the only fat kid, and these guys are just getting used to thinking about girls' bodies, and here I am with an enlarged chest. (It was also discovered that I have more testosterone and estrogen in my body than I should, so add that onto the list.) I remember even being approached once by a guy who tried to feel my chest, thinking that I was a girl with a short haircut. (Of course, knowing what I do now about the world, this could have been just a random cover for in-the-closet behavior, but I honestly think that he thought that I was a girl because of how large my chest was.)
This is Part 1. Part 2 will follow, going into detail about from the beginning of my weight loss journey to now and what my plans are for the future.
This is Part 1. Part 2 will follow, going into detail about from the beginning of my weight loss journey to now and what my plans are for the future.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
A King Without a Crown
I was Homecoming King.
Sometimes I still can’t believe it. Not in the sense that the idea of my being Homecoming King was impossible or incredulous. It’s more that I am not someone that has ever really been interested in these types of things. I have arduously avoided fads for most of my life. I have always been a nonconformist in most senses. Homecoming King seems to me to be one of the foremost symbols of conformity. It’s like apple pie and baseball, an American tradition. There are people in small towns in this country who at 40 years old, probably still dust off their homecoming crown and reminisce on the day that they outshone everyone else that was running against them.
What is the accomplishment of Homecoming King?
It’s not like you won Class President. It is not like your science project was voted best in show. It’s not like winning a race, or scoring high on a test, or even just the satisfaction of handing your work in on time.
All it means is that people liked you more than they liked some other slug. It’s like being Miss America. As I mention in the football chapter, you have the responsibility of representing the school at various functions. As homecoming king, I had to represent the school at Hispanic Culture Month, Black History Month, International Culture Month (or whatever it was, it was in April, which is actually Asian American Culture Month), and more. It was kind of fun, as I love to be in the spotlight, because that is the pinnacle of modesty. I feel like I am doing a community service, by showing how great humankind can be, taking attention away from the ugly and unimportant. (Ok, I am really kidding. I actually think that this is the pinnacle of selflessness.)
(Ok, I am really really kidding.)
Not that I am planning to relinquish my crown, but I hardly think that is a fair statement. I am not sure what statement my crown was. First, I was up against all of these guys from the football team. I was thinking that they would divide the votes enough that I could use the leverage that I had of knowing a lot of the not so popular people in the school to win. This is not what happened. There was some technicality where homecoming king had to have a certain GPA. I don’t know if this was because the committee reviewing the candidates took pity on me, and realized that this was the only way that I could win, but this measure eliminated all but two of us. The other candidate was and still is one of my best friends.
I campaigned as if I was running for president of the world. I visited each classroom. I campaigned in Spanish. I would have relearned Chinese (which I learned from ages 7- 11) if it was necessary. It could have been that I just knew more people outside of my immediate class than my friend, or that my campaigning actually worked, but I won. The ceremony was horrendous. All high school ceremonies for anything are supposed to be nothing but horrendous. The horror of the ceremony was not the ceremony itself. It was the lack of a crown.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There was a crown. I just never got it.
The crown was placed on top on this huge chair type contraption that was supposed to be the throne. As soon as I sat down, I was told that not to move because the crowns were precariously placed in such a manner that a slight movement could send it crashing down on our heads.
Obviously, this meant that we were going to be crowned in a figurative sense, as in, just receiving the accolade.
However, I really just wanted the crown.
The whole point of all of that campaigning and extra effort was not so that I could receive some title. I could care less about that. I really wanted the crown. Who wouldn’t want to have a crown in their closet, so that when you are looking back through your yearbook in college or grad school or with your children, you can pull out this gold foiled faux rubied, amethyst jeweled almost hexagon thing from the attic and say, “ I was homecoming king”. There is a certain ridiculous pride that this statement carries. Almost inexplicably so. Winning this has not impacted anything in my life. Not one blasted thing. However, it is always a conversation starter. And you know, somewhere deep inside, no matter how long I am alive, when I reflect on high school with fellow classmates, I can proudly throw in something about my glorious reign and gloat for a minute that I won the vote that means nothing, but that everyone wants to win.
This is why it is most important to understand that we did not even touch the crown. In retrospect, maybe I should have made it fall on me, just so that I could touch it once. They gave me a scepter, but after the ceremony, I was informed that is was tradition (or rather the dictates of budget cuts) for the school to keep the crown and the scepter. The only thing that I retained for my own was the sash, and honestly, no self-respecting man is going to pull a homecoming sash out of his closet without raising questions about when the rest of him will come out of the closet. So, I had a successful, untarnished reign, without scandal, but sadly, my only regret is that I did not fight for my crown.
Maybe when I get to law school, I can run for homecoming intern or something like that.
Give me a break and let me dream.
Sometimes I still can’t believe it. Not in the sense that the idea of my being Homecoming King was impossible or incredulous. It’s more that I am not someone that has ever really been interested in these types of things. I have arduously avoided fads for most of my life. I have always been a nonconformist in most senses. Homecoming King seems to me to be one of the foremost symbols of conformity. It’s like apple pie and baseball, an American tradition. There are people in small towns in this country who at 40 years old, probably still dust off their homecoming crown and reminisce on the day that they outshone everyone else that was running against them.
What is the accomplishment of Homecoming King?
It’s not like you won Class President. It is not like your science project was voted best in show. It’s not like winning a race, or scoring high on a test, or even just the satisfaction of handing your work in on time.
All it means is that people liked you more than they liked some other slug. It’s like being Miss America. As I mention in the football chapter, you have the responsibility of representing the school at various functions. As homecoming king, I had to represent the school at Hispanic Culture Month, Black History Month, International Culture Month (or whatever it was, it was in April, which is actually Asian American Culture Month), and more. It was kind of fun, as I love to be in the spotlight, because that is the pinnacle of modesty. I feel like I am doing a community service, by showing how great humankind can be, taking attention away from the ugly and unimportant. (Ok, I am really kidding. I actually think that this is the pinnacle of selflessness.)
(Ok, I am really really kidding.)
Not that I am planning to relinquish my crown, but I hardly think that is a fair statement. I am not sure what statement my crown was. First, I was up against all of these guys from the football team. I was thinking that they would divide the votes enough that I could use the leverage that I had of knowing a lot of the not so popular people in the school to win. This is not what happened. There was some technicality where homecoming king had to have a certain GPA. I don’t know if this was because the committee reviewing the candidates took pity on me, and realized that this was the only way that I could win, but this measure eliminated all but two of us. The other candidate was and still is one of my best friends.
I campaigned as if I was running for president of the world. I visited each classroom. I campaigned in Spanish. I would have relearned Chinese (which I learned from ages 7- 11) if it was necessary. It could have been that I just knew more people outside of my immediate class than my friend, or that my campaigning actually worked, but I won. The ceremony was horrendous. All high school ceremonies for anything are supposed to be nothing but horrendous. The horror of the ceremony was not the ceremony itself. It was the lack of a crown.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There was a crown. I just never got it.
The crown was placed on top on this huge chair type contraption that was supposed to be the throne. As soon as I sat down, I was told that not to move because the crowns were precariously placed in such a manner that a slight movement could send it crashing down on our heads.
Obviously, this meant that we were going to be crowned in a figurative sense, as in, just receiving the accolade.
However, I really just wanted the crown.
The whole point of all of that campaigning and extra effort was not so that I could receive some title. I could care less about that. I really wanted the crown. Who wouldn’t want to have a crown in their closet, so that when you are looking back through your yearbook in college or grad school or with your children, you can pull out this gold foiled faux rubied, amethyst jeweled almost hexagon thing from the attic and say, “ I was homecoming king”. There is a certain ridiculous pride that this statement carries. Almost inexplicably so. Winning this has not impacted anything in my life. Not one blasted thing. However, it is always a conversation starter. And you know, somewhere deep inside, no matter how long I am alive, when I reflect on high school with fellow classmates, I can proudly throw in something about my glorious reign and gloat for a minute that I won the vote that means nothing, but that everyone wants to win.
This is why it is most important to understand that we did not even touch the crown. In retrospect, maybe I should have made it fall on me, just so that I could touch it once. They gave me a scepter, but after the ceremony, I was informed that is was tradition (or rather the dictates of budget cuts) for the school to keep the crown and the scepter. The only thing that I retained for my own was the sash, and honestly, no self-respecting man is going to pull a homecoming sash out of his closet without raising questions about when the rest of him will come out of the closet. So, I had a successful, untarnished reign, without scandal, but sadly, my only regret is that I did not fight for my crown.
Maybe when I get to law school, I can run for homecoming intern or something like that.
Give me a break and let me dream.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Defense
Defense
Life is sometimes like basketball to me. Now we have established how I feel about sports, but here’s the idea. Life requires you to be on your toes, ready to protect yourself from people’s comments and actions. You also have to take it to the line as it were, and prove yourself. As well, though, other players take the position of just forging ahead through rough territory instead of staying in one place and defending.
I am tired of defending ideas and people. I find that I spend a lot of time debating things that are not of real concern. I don’t like when my friends don’t like another one of my friends. That kind of situation will see me arguing as if I am in court for the valor of this person. What do I really need to care about that for?
I do that with songs that I like, programs l like, stars I like – in general, with things I like. I guess because I have always been very independent, having a group of friends thrusts me into a situation where people don’t have as set opinions as I do. I am also that way with my opinions and my level of comfort. I always feel like I have to defend these points, instead of being like the rest of humankind and just being sure about my feelings and learning not to relent.
For instance, one night, the guys wanted to go play basketball. I thought, well, ok, normally I would try to find some way out of this, but it was the three-month anniversary of my father’s death, and I really didn’t want to be by myself. However, even the threat of loneliness on this day was not enough to make me want to play basketball. Fortunately, I had three saving graces on my side to prevent me from getting to the core of the issue, that I really don’t like anything about basketball (except for watching a live game of it, which requires no proximity to sweaty people grunting things that are only spoken in the course of a basketball game).
1. I was still recovering from a recent ankle injury, so I really shouldn’t be doing anything truly strenuous.
2. I had on boots, which, especially for someone that doesn’t play basketball, is probably not advisable. (I don’t know about the veracity of that, but I figured that either way, sneakers would be more advisable.)
3. I wear size 13, and most of friends have smaller feet than I, which means that no one would have size 13 sneakers to let me borrow.
The push was for me to play basketball though. I think, though, that once I eloquently explained that I was just going to watch (“I’m not playing!!!”), things were not so bad.
Until I mentioned that I don’t play basketball.
This slight comment turned into one of those jaw dropping moments that happen in movies, like when the precious, ancient vase is dropping to the floor as someone dives to catch it, yelling “No-o-o-o-oo-o”.
I was imagining that this was going to be the moment that Captain Testosterone was going to come and save the day, infuse me with the gene that I definitely missed, the gene that every guy but me received, the one that allows them to cancel wedding plans and quit jobs before they would miss a basketball game on TV. I even left the door unlocked, but sadly, he never showed up.
So I found myself where I find myself many a time, explaining away why I don’t like to play the evil game. Basketball I like more than other sports, but to play it would require my life being threatened. Not that I have ever heard of someone having to play because their life depended on it, but that is how serious it would have to be to see me dribbling a ball. Just take the word dribble. What kind of a word is that? Dribble. It’s like drizzle and quibble, which are two things that I think of when I consider basketball. Drizzle because of all the sweat that happens playing basketball. It just always seem like people that play basketball are always drenched. I get sweaty just thinking about that much activity. And it’s not like I don’t exercise. I run and walk and do all sorts of calisthenics every day. I am not afraid of sweating, but basketball seems like it requires undue perspiration, and I am not one for the wet t-shirt look. Quibble because it seems like basketball, especially street basketball, has 4 thousand different rules, that all differ wherever you may go. Every line and half circle means something different, and the points are different, and I just get frustrated. Just when you think that you have mastered the game, Joe from down the street plays a game with you and you find out that all the rules that you know are wrong in his book. That is why I don’t play basketball anymore. Too much red tape for something that is supposed to be fun.
However, it’s just a part of my person. I remember that once I actually admitted to someone that I was arguing with them just literally for the sake of argument. I just wanted to see how long I could go on in the conversation without relenting or wanting to give in.
This is why I plan to go to law school and never, fortunately, to be a basketball star.
Life is sometimes like basketball to me. Now we have established how I feel about sports, but here’s the idea. Life requires you to be on your toes, ready to protect yourself from people’s comments and actions. You also have to take it to the line as it were, and prove yourself. As well, though, other players take the position of just forging ahead through rough territory instead of staying in one place and defending.
I am tired of defending ideas and people. I find that I spend a lot of time debating things that are not of real concern. I don’t like when my friends don’t like another one of my friends. That kind of situation will see me arguing as if I am in court for the valor of this person. What do I really need to care about that for?
I do that with songs that I like, programs l like, stars I like – in general, with things I like. I guess because I have always been very independent, having a group of friends thrusts me into a situation where people don’t have as set opinions as I do. I am also that way with my opinions and my level of comfort. I always feel like I have to defend these points, instead of being like the rest of humankind and just being sure about my feelings and learning not to relent.
For instance, one night, the guys wanted to go play basketball. I thought, well, ok, normally I would try to find some way out of this, but it was the three-month anniversary of my father’s death, and I really didn’t want to be by myself. However, even the threat of loneliness on this day was not enough to make me want to play basketball. Fortunately, I had three saving graces on my side to prevent me from getting to the core of the issue, that I really don’t like anything about basketball (except for watching a live game of it, which requires no proximity to sweaty people grunting things that are only spoken in the course of a basketball game).
1. I was still recovering from a recent ankle injury, so I really shouldn’t be doing anything truly strenuous.
2. I had on boots, which, especially for someone that doesn’t play basketball, is probably not advisable. (I don’t know about the veracity of that, but I figured that either way, sneakers would be more advisable.)
3. I wear size 13, and most of friends have smaller feet than I, which means that no one would have size 13 sneakers to let me borrow.
The push was for me to play basketball though. I think, though, that once I eloquently explained that I was just going to watch (“I’m not playing!!!”), things were not so bad.
Until I mentioned that I don’t play basketball.
This slight comment turned into one of those jaw dropping moments that happen in movies, like when the precious, ancient vase is dropping to the floor as someone dives to catch it, yelling “No-o-o-o-oo-o”.
I was imagining that this was going to be the moment that Captain Testosterone was going to come and save the day, infuse me with the gene that I definitely missed, the gene that every guy but me received, the one that allows them to cancel wedding plans and quit jobs before they would miss a basketball game on TV. I even left the door unlocked, but sadly, he never showed up.
So I found myself where I find myself many a time, explaining away why I don’t like to play the evil game. Basketball I like more than other sports, but to play it would require my life being threatened. Not that I have ever heard of someone having to play because their life depended on it, but that is how serious it would have to be to see me dribbling a ball. Just take the word dribble. What kind of a word is that? Dribble. It’s like drizzle and quibble, which are two things that I think of when I consider basketball. Drizzle because of all the sweat that happens playing basketball. It just always seem like people that play basketball are always drenched. I get sweaty just thinking about that much activity. And it’s not like I don’t exercise. I run and walk and do all sorts of calisthenics every day. I am not afraid of sweating, but basketball seems like it requires undue perspiration, and I am not one for the wet t-shirt look. Quibble because it seems like basketball, especially street basketball, has 4 thousand different rules, that all differ wherever you may go. Every line and half circle means something different, and the points are different, and I just get frustrated. Just when you think that you have mastered the game, Joe from down the street plays a game with you and you find out that all the rules that you know are wrong in his book. That is why I don’t play basketball anymore. Too much red tape for something that is supposed to be fun.
However, it’s just a part of my person. I remember that once I actually admitted to someone that I was arguing with them just literally for the sake of argument. I just wanted to see how long I could go on in the conversation without relenting or wanting to give in.
This is why I plan to go to law school and never, fortunately, to be a basketball star.
Football
Football
As I explained in the intro, I have never been the man’s man. I was never the captain of the basketball team, nor did I want to be. I’ve never known much about football except that it reminded me of the futility of war. This brings me to this next story.
Football….
So there I was, maybe 12 or so, putzing around the house with not much to do. My relative comes up with the bright idea that we should go play football. This relative is older than I, and so were his friends, so this was the first piece of discomfort. Now I was at that strange area of preteen life where I wanted acceptance as much as I was rejecting society and all that good stuff. So, I had to weigh the pros and cons of this proposition:
Pros:
I get to hang out with the older kids. (Not so interesting in my book, since all of my friends were older than me.)
If I went, then I wouldn’t be in the house to do any chores. (To a 12 year-old, this is the closest thing that we could get to a high.)
And last but not least -
I would probably get the chance to eat at a fast food place and order what I wanted, or at least hang out at somebody’s house for a while, prolonging that sad drive back home. (When you are 12, going back home is a depression that very few people could understand.)
The Cons:
I hated football. (I don’t love it now, but I wouldn’t necessarily throw up or become violently disturbed if anyone asked me now to play it.)
I really hated football. (To me, it was the last bastion of machismo in my life, and I refused to give in to its pervasive ardor and deceptive team spirit. One day, I planned to once and for all rid the world of its evil ways, but for now, I had to settle for loathing it, silently.)
I really hated being around people that like football, especially events that glorified the game. (I have been to maybe one live football game, besides the ridiculous attempts at it in gym classes in school, and the one that you will read about here. I went to one because I won Homecoming King. That was only because as part of the responsibilities of the crown (somehow I wrote that with a straight face) was to be announced at the Homecoming game. There is more of this in the chapter called – hold on to your seats – Homecoming King.
The jury returned the verdict that I should go, despite the haunting feeling that this was a big mistake and that I may never be the same after this wretched experience. I was not so right, not so wrong.
Well, it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but that has to do with just my natural reaction as opposed to knowing anything about the game. When the ball was thrown to me, I ran, and knowing that there are 18,000 burly and somewhat ill-cultured men running behind you, thirsty for blood, the best thing to do is to run like fire. And I did. I actually surprised most people there because, except for my relative and his best friend, no one knew that I am pretty quick. I ended up dragging like 4 guys with me as I crossed the touchdown line.
As for the other parts of the game, trauma might be the best word to use. Someone told me to be nose guard. Immediate stop signs were raised in my head. Nose guard? I don’t want to do anything requiring me to guard anyone else’s nose, or my own. I reneged on this position, citing the obvious – “I don’t know what that means”. So the genius of the group suggests that while playing the game, I should observe the other nose guards to see what they were doing and do that. Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but what was I supposed to do in the meantime? I consider feigning a seizure to rescue me from this situation, but I feared more my parents’ anger at using insurance unnecessarily. So I pretended to do something while everyone was busy doing whatever they were running around doing, until someone noticed that I was doing the equivalent of busy work on the football field. I had to do Something, of course, this is football. I should have been grateful to be able to participate in America’s pastime. What was I thinking?
So, I grabbed some guy who had the ball and threw him to the ground. Problem solved.
He argued with me that I had ripped his windbreaker. I retorted that he shouldn’t have worn something that he didn’t want ripped to a football game. This bit of male bravado that I exhibited salvaged the rest of my sappy performance in this game, and my touchdown actually propelled me to some type of respectable status. Moreover, the windbreaker incident became my new way out of future games – of course, I didn’t want to repeat this incident, so I would just keep my anger out of the football arena.
I still hate football.
As I explained in the intro, I have never been the man’s man. I was never the captain of the basketball team, nor did I want to be. I’ve never known much about football except that it reminded me of the futility of war. This brings me to this next story.
Football….
So there I was, maybe 12 or so, putzing around the house with not much to do. My relative comes up with the bright idea that we should go play football. This relative is older than I, and so were his friends, so this was the first piece of discomfort. Now I was at that strange area of preteen life where I wanted acceptance as much as I was rejecting society and all that good stuff. So, I had to weigh the pros and cons of this proposition:
Pros:
I get to hang out with the older kids. (Not so interesting in my book, since all of my friends were older than me.)
If I went, then I wouldn’t be in the house to do any chores. (To a 12 year-old, this is the closest thing that we could get to a high.)
And last but not least -
I would probably get the chance to eat at a fast food place and order what I wanted, or at least hang out at somebody’s house for a while, prolonging that sad drive back home. (When you are 12, going back home is a depression that very few people could understand.)
The Cons:
I hated football. (I don’t love it now, but I wouldn’t necessarily throw up or become violently disturbed if anyone asked me now to play it.)
I really hated football. (To me, it was the last bastion of machismo in my life, and I refused to give in to its pervasive ardor and deceptive team spirit. One day, I planned to once and for all rid the world of its evil ways, but for now, I had to settle for loathing it, silently.)
I really hated being around people that like football, especially events that glorified the game. (I have been to maybe one live football game, besides the ridiculous attempts at it in gym classes in school, and the one that you will read about here. I went to one because I won Homecoming King. That was only because as part of the responsibilities of the crown (somehow I wrote that with a straight face) was to be announced at the Homecoming game. There is more of this in the chapter called – hold on to your seats – Homecoming King.
The jury returned the verdict that I should go, despite the haunting feeling that this was a big mistake and that I may never be the same after this wretched experience. I was not so right, not so wrong.
Well, it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but that has to do with just my natural reaction as opposed to knowing anything about the game. When the ball was thrown to me, I ran, and knowing that there are 18,000 burly and somewhat ill-cultured men running behind you, thirsty for blood, the best thing to do is to run like fire. And I did. I actually surprised most people there because, except for my relative and his best friend, no one knew that I am pretty quick. I ended up dragging like 4 guys with me as I crossed the touchdown line.
As for the other parts of the game, trauma might be the best word to use. Someone told me to be nose guard. Immediate stop signs were raised in my head. Nose guard? I don’t want to do anything requiring me to guard anyone else’s nose, or my own. I reneged on this position, citing the obvious – “I don’t know what that means”. So the genius of the group suggests that while playing the game, I should observe the other nose guards to see what they were doing and do that. Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but what was I supposed to do in the meantime? I consider feigning a seizure to rescue me from this situation, but I feared more my parents’ anger at using insurance unnecessarily. So I pretended to do something while everyone was busy doing whatever they were running around doing, until someone noticed that I was doing the equivalent of busy work on the football field. I had to do Something, of course, this is football. I should have been grateful to be able to participate in America’s pastime. What was I thinking?
So, I grabbed some guy who had the ball and threw him to the ground. Problem solved.
He argued with me that I had ripped his windbreaker. I retorted that he shouldn’t have worn something that he didn’t want ripped to a football game. This bit of male bravado that I exhibited salvaged the rest of my sappy performance in this game, and my touchdown actually propelled me to some type of respectable status. Moreover, the windbreaker incident became my new way out of future games – of course, I didn’t want to repeat this incident, so I would just keep my anger out of the football arena.
I still hate football.
Got to get it tight, got to get it right
I was five when I was first introduced to the wonderful world of dieting. Two of my relatives sequestered me in the kitchen and showed me a salad as if it was the Holy Grail. I was told how I needed to be on a diet. I don’t think that I really understood what a diet was at 5. I know now.I know what diets are, the meaning of fats, carbohydrates, body mass indicators, pilates and yoga. I’ve learned so much about dieting and weight loss that I feel like I can write a book on it. (Maybe I will if I ever finish this one.) After I broke up with my ex-fiancée, I decided to drop all of my inhibitions and enter a gym. Basically, I emerged from there 80 pounds lighter. Then I hit that plateau where I didn’t lose anything or gain anything. That’s more frustrating than being in a war with a gun full of ammo, trying to shoot people, but your gun is jammed. Then my loss started happening again when I embarked on what I called “My 90 day Plan to be a Sexier Man”. It’s been a lot of hard work, but I have been happy to see my results. My body is starting to take the form that I always wanted and always knew was somewhere under my skin. My newest inspiration is not a diet. Diets are for doodleheads. (That’s my statement; you can quote me on that.) It’s not a reunion or a wedding for which I am toning. It’s just good old me. I have inspired me. That and a little help from Beyonce and Trinity from the Matrix. Trinity (laying on her back having jumped down a flight of stairs): “Get up!” Beyoncé (on getting herself in shape): “Got to get it tight, Got to get it right.” What else would you expect from me but to have these aphorisms run my fitness life? For me, though, I have always had a problem with my weight. I have always been heavy. It seems to me that skinny people have more issues with trying to be skinny or skinnier than a lot of bigger people including me have had with always been thick and wanting to see a change. For instance, this girl I knew that I used to tutor, let’s call her Lisa, used to obsess over weight issues. Of course, like I have intimated a little earlier, when you are not small, you think that everyone that is smaller than you are should have no problem with body image. I have learned differently thanks to Lisa and others that I have met that, to me, seem like waifs, but to them, seem like whales awaiting harpooning. She was a really nice girl, and I thought that she was quite attractive, to be honest. Anyway, so I am in the middle of tutoring her, when one of her roommates comes into the kitchen area, where we are, at the table. Roommate approaches and asks everyone in the kitchen (including me) “Did you eat my ice cream?” This impassioned plea reminded me of the best soap opera moments that only make sense in a world of complete make-believe. I have never heard someone so concerned about food, especially a dessert. (Well, there was that time when I flipped out because my father ate my apple cinnamon pancakes, but even the drama king that I am, I didn’t react this vehemently.) It was like a mother looking for her child, or how Hello Kitty would be if she could lament why she has no mouth. (Of course, if she had a mouth, which the stuffed Hello Kitty Dolls and the drawn cartoon version don’t, this would nullify her need to have this discussion. You get my drift.) So, she went to each person in the house to ask them if they were responsible for demolishing her ice cream supply. She even asked me. So when it became clear that the culprit was not present, or might have been too afraid to face her wrath at the moment, she went on to relate to us, almost tearfully how she had “bought this ice cream so that” she could “eat for a week”. No, she had not bought peanut butter and jelly or a chicken, or even crackers. She bought a ½ gallon of ice cream for a week’s worth of nourishment. However, the ridiculousness does not stop there. So she tells us how she had no money now, not even enough to put gas in her car to go to work. (It would seem that she should have wanted to work more, if she had to be put in this situation.) She had bought this ½ gallon of frozen cream heaven so that she would not starve and someone decided to eat almost all of it. In her defense, the ½ gallon had really been decimated as if a plague or a hungry nation had devoured it. She left a letter for the culprit and she read it to us. Basically, it read:“Hi. I hope that you enjoyed my ice cream. That was all that I had to eat for this week. Here’s the rest of it to finish since you liked it so much. I hope that you are planning to buy me another one.” It is to be noted that this note was read to us with the seriousness of a president declaring war on the world. How surprising, then, is it to find out that one of the girls in the house was later diagnosed with bulimia? Apparently, after months of mysterious food decimation, this one girl was caught scarfing down another roommate’s food, and the girls of the house put two and two together. This is proof that everyone’s battle is different and offers different challenges. I hate crunches, but they are a necessary thing, like breathing.
OK outfits, and almost beautiful
Ok, so I was saying that I sounded like I was on the cast of “Mean Girls” for my comments about Ugly Boy. I do not apologize for them, but I do want to say something else that will really make me seem like I wrote that movie, about my life. There are two groups of people about whom I will speak right now for whom I feel sorry. Who am I to feel sorry for someone, you may ask, but I realize that my life was sadder when I was not conscious of my misgivings and how to make the best of bad situations. So, I give you two groups that deserve a national charity.
First group is the Ok Outfit people. I alluded to this when I spoke about the moms that buy the big purple coat because that is all that they can afford at Burlington Coat Factory after buying their child the most expensive outfit. Such situations like these seem to make people feel that they have to be part of the Ok outfit crew. What does that mean? It is the segment of the population that seems to feel that is ok because of their finances or other reasons for them to just buy whatever color, shape and size outfit, and call it a day.
I feel really sorry for people that wear gray more than necessary. There is a classy gray and a garbage gray. I mean the garbage gray here. There is nothing wrong with the color and I even wear it at times. However, this is not a color that should clothe your body on a regular basis. There is a guy that works at my school who apparently has no other colors in his closet except for gray. I think that if I were him, that would automatically make me put myself in therapy.
This gray fetish is scary, like one's whole outlook on life is colorless, lifeless, bland. I've seen people like that all through my life and I've never ceased to be amazed by this.
The other group is Almost Beautiful. Almost beautiful is this person: She walks into a room and people can't help but stare, stunned by her beauty. She has on the right blouse and the pants that accentuate every curve. Her hair and make-up are perfect.
And then you realize that what everyone was staring at was the fact that she had one bright pink sneakers.
Ok, so maybe this is drastic, but that is a dramatization of Almost Beautiful. Almost Beautiful is those people who basically have everything it takes to be stunning, except that one little correctable flaw that remains as of yet unchecked.
For instance, there is the screwed-up-shoes guy. He will have the whole outfit, but his whole outfit looks like the remnants from a fire or from a World War II battle. There is the bad hairstyle girl that has what it takes to be a model, but whatever is on top of her head is paying tribute to Jersey Hair.
Why do I care about these people?
I've been Ok Outfit boy, when I reasoned that everything went with black, so I should just wear anything with black shirts or black ties.I've been "almost handsome", and I have had those scuffed shoes. I've even been the extreme case of "Almost handsome" wearing OK outfit. So when I see these people, I know where they are at in their lives, and I want to rescue them. I want to rush them in an ambulance to a mall and get all their style problems corrected, like emergency surgery.
Ok, so I was saying that I sounded like I was on the cast of “Mean Girls” for my comments about Ugly Boy. I do not apologize for them, but I do want to say something else that will really make me seem like I wrote that movie, about my life. There are two groups of people about whom I will speak right now for whom I feel sorry. Who am I to feel sorry for someone, you may ask, but I realize that my life was sadder when I was not conscious of my misgivings and how to make the best of bad situations. So, I give you two groups that deserve a national charity.
First group is the Ok Outfit people. I alluded to this when I spoke about the moms that buy the big purple coat because that is all that they can afford at Burlington Coat Factory after buying their child the most expensive outfit. Such situations like these seem to make people feel that they have to be part of the Ok outfit crew. What does that mean? It is the segment of the population that seems to feel that is ok because of their finances or other reasons for them to just buy whatever color, shape and size outfit, and call it a day.
I feel really sorry for people that wear gray more than necessary. There is a classy gray and a garbage gray. I mean the garbage gray here. There is nothing wrong with the color and I even wear it at times. However, this is not a color that should clothe your body on a regular basis. There is a guy that works at my school who apparently has no other colors in his closet except for gray. I think that if I were him, that would automatically make me put myself in therapy.
This gray fetish is scary, like one's whole outlook on life is colorless, lifeless, bland. I've seen people like that all through my life and I've never ceased to be amazed by this.
The other group is Almost Beautiful. Almost beautiful is this person: She walks into a room and people can't help but stare, stunned by her beauty. She has on the right blouse and the pants that accentuate every curve. Her hair and make-up are perfect.
And then you realize that what everyone was staring at was the fact that she had one bright pink sneakers.
Ok, so maybe this is drastic, but that is a dramatization of Almost Beautiful. Almost Beautiful is those people who basically have everything it takes to be stunning, except that one little correctable flaw that remains as of yet unchecked.
For instance, there is the screwed-up-shoes guy. He will have the whole outfit, but his whole outfit looks like the remnants from a fire or from a World War II battle. There is the bad hairstyle girl that has what it takes to be a model, but whatever is on top of her head is paying tribute to Jersey Hair.
Why do I care about these people?
I've been Ok Outfit boy, when I reasoned that everything went with black, so I should just wear anything with black shirts or black ties.I've been "almost handsome", and I have had those scuffed shoes. I've even been the extreme case of "Almost handsome" wearing OK outfit. So when I see these people, I know where they are at in their lives, and I want to rescue them. I want to rush them in an ambulance to a mall and get all their style problems corrected, like emergency surgery.
The correct pronunciation of chitterlings
The correct pronunciation of chitterlings
I am a big mixture of cultures, and I don’t really claim just one, so I see myself as a good stew of world spices. I grew up in a town with mainly people of color in my schools, so I was exposed to various cultures within and without my home. Many times, especially after seeing my parents, my friends had questions, both understandable and bizarre. Like these:
Are you mixed?
What is your father?
What is your mother?
Where you born in this country?
Where are you from?
Did you grow up confused?
These questions I definitely understood. Here is one that made no sense to me:
What do you eat for dinner?
I would never think to ask someone something like that. That just seems like such an inconsequential thing in terms of who I am. Then again, I guess as well that food is a cultural marker and a piece of identity.
We were all picky eaters growing up, so my mom often cooked more than one kind of vegetable, or picked up something from a restaurant for one or more us. Some people said that she was spoiling us, but hey, if I don’t eat peas, I don’t eat peas. If the smell of lima beans makes me sick, placing a plate of them in front of me is not going to make me eat them any more quickly. Why waste it on me when there are starving kids in other countries that would love to eat that food? (I don’t know about you, but I was starving, and someone gave me lima beans or peas to eat, I probably would still starve. Let’s be real. Hunger doesn’t create delirium until after a while.)
Anyway, one day I went to the local bodega, and I noticed something the produce section called chitterlings. I asked the owner what that was and he told me that he didn’t know himself and that he had ordered it for someone that had requested. When I got home, I asked my mother the same question. She smiled and asked me if I had ever heard someone say “chit-lins”. I said yes, in school. She told me that this is the way that most people pronounce chitterlings as such. Chitterlings are the intestines of hogs. It smells like crap, for the obvious reason, from what I am told, since I have never had them nor am I rushing to try them. My mother told me that in harder times, folks had to use every part of every animal to try to stretch out their dollar. This was especially true before the slaves were freed, when they really had to take what they could to survive.
I am more of an Italian and Latin food kind of guy, but I always thought this story was kind of endearing, if not for the fact that I must have asked this question 3 years ago.
I love being a melting pot.
I am a big mixture of cultures, and I don’t really claim just one, so I see myself as a good stew of world spices. I grew up in a town with mainly people of color in my schools, so I was exposed to various cultures within and without my home. Many times, especially after seeing my parents, my friends had questions, both understandable and bizarre. Like these:
Are you mixed?
What is your father?
What is your mother?
Where you born in this country?
Where are you from?
Did you grow up confused?
These questions I definitely understood. Here is one that made no sense to me:
What do you eat for dinner?
I would never think to ask someone something like that. That just seems like such an inconsequential thing in terms of who I am. Then again, I guess as well that food is a cultural marker and a piece of identity.
We were all picky eaters growing up, so my mom often cooked more than one kind of vegetable, or picked up something from a restaurant for one or more us. Some people said that she was spoiling us, but hey, if I don’t eat peas, I don’t eat peas. If the smell of lima beans makes me sick, placing a plate of them in front of me is not going to make me eat them any more quickly. Why waste it on me when there are starving kids in other countries that would love to eat that food? (I don’t know about you, but I was starving, and someone gave me lima beans or peas to eat, I probably would still starve. Let’s be real. Hunger doesn’t create delirium until after a while.)
Anyway, one day I went to the local bodega, and I noticed something the produce section called chitterlings. I asked the owner what that was and he told me that he didn’t know himself and that he had ordered it for someone that had requested. When I got home, I asked my mother the same question. She smiled and asked me if I had ever heard someone say “chit-lins”. I said yes, in school. She told me that this is the way that most people pronounce chitterlings as such. Chitterlings are the intestines of hogs. It smells like crap, for the obvious reason, from what I am told, since I have never had them nor am I rushing to try them. My mother told me that in harder times, folks had to use every part of every animal to try to stretch out their dollar. This was especially true before the slaves were freed, when they really had to take what they could to survive.
I am more of an Italian and Latin food kind of guy, but I always thought this story was kind of endearing, if not for the fact that I must have asked this question 3 years ago.
I love being a melting pot.
Stupid girls and their stupid boyfriends
Stupid Girls and their Stupid boyfriends
There are a few types of stupid girls and they mostly gain or accentuate their stupidity via their stupid boyfriends. I was in high school when this girl asked me to call up her boyfriend and inform him that she was breaking up with him. Being the friend that I was, I did this. (This was another one of my Jessica Simpson moments. I concede this in retrospect.)
I called. He said that he was going to come to school (well, actually, visit, since he was non-high-school-student drug dealer) to shoot me. I reasoned:
a. this could be the most excitement in my school day.
b. By the time the security desk dealt with him, where my aunt worked, someone would alert me to any danger.
c. If worse came to worse, I had every right to use this girl as a human shield. (cowardly, yes, appropriate, yes)
She falls into the first category of stupid girls, which is the “I am now important because I have a boyfriend” girl. When she is alone, she is meek, sullen sometimes, not too aloof, and dotes over her friends. When she is with boyfriend, she feels elevated to star status, as if she is being hounded by paparazzi. Yes, people are looking at her, but looking at how ridiculous she looks. It’s like she is in one of those slow motion revelries in romantic movies, running across a field to her stupid boyfriend, except that she is just really galloping toward his car in the school parking lot. The boyfriend is a means for her to get attention, she reasons. She might have been fed this information by her stupid boyfriend, or even by some of her equally stupid friends, but ultimately, she lives and dies to have someone on her side to maintain her importance.
She differs from the next type of stupid girl, the “I have a purpose in life now that I am with someone” girl. Similar to the girl before, she was amicable before being paired up with her stupid boyfriend. Her “boyfriendedness” absorbs her and she beomces this mass of stupid loving doting affection for him. Her sole concern is making her stupid boyfriend’s each moment better than the last. No matter what. If her boyfriend told her to wear a shirt that says “My boyfriend is a god and he took pity on me by going out with me. I am not worthy. I am stupid” she would wear this shirt with pride to her wedding and ask to be buried in it for her funeral. She has classic abuse victim behavior. She worries me. Her stupid boyfriend is king in her stupid little world because he is a peon anywhere else.
The third stupid girl is probably the scariest of them all. She is the female side of the “SuperCouple”, so I guess that she is “Supergirl”. They have some strong quality in common. They are either either really smart, athletic, sarcastic, stupid, or Goth, regardless, they end up really stupid. Together. Collectively. Supergirl gloats in the perfection of her relationship. She sees the imperfections of her man and herself, and speaks openly about them, seemingly believing that this acceptance of the imperfection times his acceptance of his equals perfections. Negative times negative does equal positive, but this case is more like negative fraction times negative fraction equals positive fraction with smaller absolute value. Like - ¼ * - ¼ = 1/16. True, 1/16 is positive, but it’s ½ of one slice of pizza in comparison to the pie. That works well if you are on a binge purge diet. My point exactly. The supercouple reminds me of vomit.
The issue with stupid girls is always the problem of their stupid boyfriends. They all tend to be overly jealous. Here’s a list of reasons why they have no reason to be jealous (except of other stupid guys who might want to take their throne of stupidity):
1. No one wants your girlfriend.
2. #1 is true because she settled for you or because she became a stupid girl because of you.
3. There is always some girl that is not stupid who is more desirable than your girl.
4. You look incredibly stupid being jealous over a girl who lost most of her cool points because of settling for you or becoming stupid for you.
5. You are insecure and are easily manipulated due to this weakness.
6. I think that you are close to what the missing link would be.
7. If I could materialize your worth to me, it would take the form of hamster crap. My dislike for you would take the form of a large active volcano.
8. I hope to never become like you and if I do, I give permission to anyone to terminate my physical existence, because my mental existence would have to have ended to allow this to occur.
9. Since many of you try to replace your lack of brain power with brawn, here are two important facts on that note:
a. Big muscles don’t make you better.
b. Big muscles don’t cover your face.
10. No one is scared of you; we’re just scared at the thought that your sperm may be fertile.
Not like I am venting or anything like that.
I went out with a stupid girl once. On the second date, after she suggested that we go play video games together (this is in college), I decided to leave her early before I would have to vomit on her for her sheer ineptitude. Pretty gentleman-like, no?
There are a few types of stupid girls and they mostly gain or accentuate their stupidity via their stupid boyfriends. I was in high school when this girl asked me to call up her boyfriend and inform him that she was breaking up with him. Being the friend that I was, I did this. (This was another one of my Jessica Simpson moments. I concede this in retrospect.)
I called. He said that he was going to come to school (well, actually, visit, since he was non-high-school-student drug dealer) to shoot me. I reasoned:
a. this could be the most excitement in my school day.
b. By the time the security desk dealt with him, where my aunt worked, someone would alert me to any danger.
c. If worse came to worse, I had every right to use this girl as a human shield. (cowardly, yes, appropriate, yes)
She falls into the first category of stupid girls, which is the “I am now important because I have a boyfriend” girl. When she is alone, she is meek, sullen sometimes, not too aloof, and dotes over her friends. When she is with boyfriend, she feels elevated to star status, as if she is being hounded by paparazzi. Yes, people are looking at her, but looking at how ridiculous she looks. It’s like she is in one of those slow motion revelries in romantic movies, running across a field to her stupid boyfriend, except that she is just really galloping toward his car in the school parking lot. The boyfriend is a means for her to get attention, she reasons. She might have been fed this information by her stupid boyfriend, or even by some of her equally stupid friends, but ultimately, she lives and dies to have someone on her side to maintain her importance.
She differs from the next type of stupid girl, the “I have a purpose in life now that I am with someone” girl. Similar to the girl before, she was amicable before being paired up with her stupid boyfriend. Her “boyfriendedness” absorbs her and she beomces this mass of stupid loving doting affection for him. Her sole concern is making her stupid boyfriend’s each moment better than the last. No matter what. If her boyfriend told her to wear a shirt that says “My boyfriend is a god and he took pity on me by going out with me. I am not worthy. I am stupid” she would wear this shirt with pride to her wedding and ask to be buried in it for her funeral. She has classic abuse victim behavior. She worries me. Her stupid boyfriend is king in her stupid little world because he is a peon anywhere else.
The third stupid girl is probably the scariest of them all. She is the female side of the “SuperCouple”, so I guess that she is “Supergirl”. They have some strong quality in common. They are either either really smart, athletic, sarcastic, stupid, or Goth, regardless, they end up really stupid. Together. Collectively. Supergirl gloats in the perfection of her relationship. She sees the imperfections of her man and herself, and speaks openly about them, seemingly believing that this acceptance of the imperfection times his acceptance of his equals perfections. Negative times negative does equal positive, but this case is more like negative fraction times negative fraction equals positive fraction with smaller absolute value. Like - ¼ * - ¼ = 1/16. True, 1/16 is positive, but it’s ½ of one slice of pizza in comparison to the pie. That works well if you are on a binge purge diet. My point exactly. The supercouple reminds me of vomit.
The issue with stupid girls is always the problem of their stupid boyfriends. They all tend to be overly jealous. Here’s a list of reasons why they have no reason to be jealous (except of other stupid guys who might want to take their throne of stupidity):
1. No one wants your girlfriend.
2. #1 is true because she settled for you or because she became a stupid girl because of you.
3. There is always some girl that is not stupid who is more desirable than your girl.
4. You look incredibly stupid being jealous over a girl who lost most of her cool points because of settling for you or becoming stupid for you.
5. You are insecure and are easily manipulated due to this weakness.
6. I think that you are close to what the missing link would be.
7. If I could materialize your worth to me, it would take the form of hamster crap. My dislike for you would take the form of a large active volcano.
8. I hope to never become like you and if I do, I give permission to anyone to terminate my physical existence, because my mental existence would have to have ended to allow this to occur.
9. Since many of you try to replace your lack of brain power with brawn, here are two important facts on that note:
a. Big muscles don’t make you better.
b. Big muscles don’t cover your face.
10. No one is scared of you; we’re just scared at the thought that your sperm may be fertile.
Not like I am venting or anything like that.
I went out with a stupid girl once. On the second date, after she suggested that we go play video games together (this is in college), I decided to leave her early before I would have to vomit on her for her sheer ineptitude. Pretty gentleman-like, no?
Ghetto...
Ghetto
I heard a girl, we’ll call her Jen, say that her apartment was ghetto because it did not have a lot of furniture.
Really, Jen? Really?
I was listening to a top 40 radio station and a caller, let’s call her Megan, calls in, commenting on a discussion about whether the DJ should wear his hat to the back or not. She says that this is so ghetto. From her voice, I made the assumption that she was not exactly the princess of the ghetto. I mean that she was not calling from the third floor apartment in the projects, if you know what I mean. Now, the way she says “ghetto” is the same tone that her mother would probably use when saying “urban”, “trashy”, “trailer trash”, or “ this milk is spoiled”, with her nose turned up, as she clutches her pearls. It occurred to me that she meant ghetto as in “slumming”, “being rebellious”.
However, the way that she said it was disturbing in a twofold sense – for the aforementioned reason and a second one.
As a person of color, there is an unwritten rule: I can say anything about my family, but you can’t. Not even about my most pathetic, annoying relative. The same applies here. Similarly, people of color in general have been exposed to distressful socioeconomic situations in this country and, thus, have had to know the ghetto. Meanwhile, in recent times, Megans across the country have come to idolize 50 Cent as the newest teen icon and Jay-Z gets played, in the most edited form, on Top 40 radio. From these rappers and icons talking about the ghetto and their experiences, Megans now believe that they understand the ghetto. So, since these guys wear their hats backwards, Megan believes that that is so ghetto, since she now is a bona fide expert in ghetto-ness. Little does she realize that most fashions today originated from the ghetto. Before Paris Hilton got extensions, Lakisha and Ronisha were rocking them like they were going out of style. This whole messy hair trend is what people with straight hair do to try to emulate an afro. And don’t let us forget about the trend of wearing panchos, or eating chips and salsa. El barrio, the ghetto, places where you have to “make do” with what you have create trends that eventually cost too much for the people who started them to afford their high priced counterparts. The problem is that people then making the following three associations:
1. that all people of color are ghetto (Just look at Traci Bingham and that proves me correct.
2. that ghetto is a term that only applies to just Blacks and Latinos (Tanya Harding and most guests of Jerry Springer that are not Black or Latino are proof of this)
3. and that everything connected to the ghetto is bad (Fried Chicken, basketball, and double dutch (which is now a national sport))
Thus, I guess my reaction to Megan was because I felt that she would need to really have some inkling of understanding in her life as to what is the ghetto experience before she could comment on it.
What does the word ghetto mean to you?
To some people, it means a neighborhood, like, a ghetto, what the word originally meant. It comes from an Italian dialectical word ghèto which meant a foundry, or a place where a foundation is built. It referred to an island where the Jews were forced to live isolated. The word comes from the word ghétar which means to cast out, which comes from the word jactare in Latin that means to throw. Yes, it was important for me to write all of that.
So, to others, it refers to where they live. It refers to a place that is not so rich, no so well kept, maybe projects or “low income housing”. We’re thinking the hood, the block, an area with many of what is commonly referred to as “the corner”. That is important to remember because as the suburban sprawl has reared its ugly little head, so has the elimination of corners. Have you noticed that the richer that an area is, the less corners that it has? These areas have more soft, curvy, continuous sidewalks, giving the impression of a completely harmonious and connected society. Ghetto mentality would equate “soft corners” with being a punk. Honestly, put the suburban street against the ghetto corner and I think we all know who’s winning the fight. Corners tend to be gathering places, especially in what some people call the ghetto. I think that is because this is the best vantage place to see everything, and if you are living in the ghetto, you are probably outside because you are trying to see what’s going on. Thus, the corner is the best seat in the house. I hope that I don’t sound too distant from the topic, although I doubt that the Ghetto Residential Association is going to come down on me too hard if I did. The point is that while it almost hurts me to see people live in such economic strain, it also hurts me to see people characterize whole races of people as what they consider to be the ghetto.
I lived close enough to the ghetto to know where it was, and not to go there. Although the word is bourgeois, the pronunciation “boo-zhee” refers to people like how I am sometimes, people of color that are viewed as viewing themselves too high or too cultured for the ghetto. I personally don’t think that I think of myself as either, but just that it is not my element. For example, I remember that people would mention to me in elementary and high school when our city first got recycling bins for each house that their ghetto areas did not receive any bins, but my area, which was not ghetto, did. This is when I first noticed the disparity. And then in more conversations, I realized that our lives were so different. These kids related to the things that they saw in “Boyz in the Hood” and movies like that. I did not even see the movie until maybe two years ago, and when I did, I did not relate to it. Some of their stories of tough love from their parents, and economic depression made my complaints about anything seem all but ridiculous. These kids had seen people sell drugs, take drugs, get shot, shoot people, and show wild reckless abandon. The most that I had ever seen was what I saw on TV. The wildest thing that had ever happened to me was that I cut school. As I did not relate, this pushed me further and further away from them, to the point that, yes, I became what they pronounce as “boo-zhee”.
Be that at as it may, whenever you even remotely know someone from the ghetto, you will learn a little about the ghetto attitude. Being ghetto. To me, it is not what a lot of people think. I have noticed that the word ghetto has now come to be the PC way for saying that something is “like black people, like street people, lower-class”. I’ve heard certain people say things like that they were living ghetto, because they were living on a little bit of money, or in a ragged apartment, etc. I think that it is one of those terms that you have to be familiar with to use. I would never describe my great day as “gnarly”, not because I don’t have days that fit in with the meaning of that word, but the lifestyle associated with people that use the word “gnarly” as slang is not mine. In case you were wondering, “gnarly” actually has a standard meaning, which means twisted into a state of deformity. Gnarl is a verb. Don’t say you never learned anything from my book.
Now the ghetto attitude is definitely very contagious. I am going to sound like a stuffed shirt trying to explain hip-hop to the country club right now, but here goes:
The ghetto attitude is a no holds barred*, “I will break you into small pieces and then come back with my whole family and beat up your whole family, grandma against grandma” type of mantra. It is caused by being in situations, both economic and social, that back one against a wall, which forces one to fight like fire and learn how to take care of oneself. Having been pushed to that limit, or living on that limit all the time though, makes one on the defensive all of the time. A simple look turns into a challenge. Any statement not blatantly positive becomes a possible slight. It creates a very edgy, tense situation.
What happens though also is that this resistance of outside influences often means that advances toward higher education or better socioeconomic station, or at least proper diction and decorum, are also viewed as demonstrations of direct opposition to ghetto-ness and those who live in it. This sometimes means that people who speak well or are more educated are shunned and viewed as outsiders and inferior in terms of street credibility (make sure to sign me up for that degree) and also, acting as if one has ever gone to any form of school is often viewed as subordination from the code of ghetto ethics.
*(Is “no holds barred” a wrestling term? Like no type of hold is barred, which means that it’s kind of free for all? Did I just figure that out all by myself? Hmmm…)
Anyway, three thoughts come to mind.
My father went to one of his doctors and upon leaving the office, requested a referral form from the ghetto girl at the desk. She insisted three times to my father that he has already received a referral, to which my father replied each time that no, he hadn’t and that the doctor had just sent to get one from the desk. On the last time that my father asked, ghetto girl says, “You already got one”. It could have been the bad English, or the ghetto attitude that the girl displayed, but this upset my father so much that he left. My mother returned to ask again for the referral, and this time, ghetto girl became irate. The doctor was standing by and tried to ascertain the problem. The girl showed him that, yes, she had given my father a referral. The problem was that what she called a referral was actually a receipt. The Doctor asks ghetto girl if she made a habit of filing the papers that the doctor prepared for patients. She said yes. As the doctor is looking through the files, he asks if she files in alphabetical order. She says, “What you mean, LMNOP?”
I rest my case. But wait, there’s more.
I mentioned in the “Chicken and Jeans” Chapter that I had someone throw a pair of jeans at me. This was my experience with ghetto shopper at Christmastime. Apparently, ghetto shopper was not too observant that I was using the folding table to fold the pile of clothes that was taller than I. How anyone could miss it, I am not sure, but she decided that she needed to toss a pair of jeans onto the table as I am folding, despite the fact that I was in the middle of folding clothes. This ire of her disregard for my oh-so important work of folding (If I have to pretend like folding clothes is important to me, so much so that I am getting paid to do so, then everyone else better play along) metamorphosed into rage when she hurled the jeans at me, and in the process the sensor tag on the jeans hit me in the wrist. (Maybe she didn’t hurl them in hindsight, but at the time, it seemed like she was pitching a baseball at me.)
After this, since she threw the jeans onto the folding table, I folded them, so as not to lose my rhythm and also to keep from throwing those jeans at her, or better yet, removing the sensor tag from the jeans and inserting it into her skull. She then increased the level of her audacity and said to me, “Excuse me (pronounce like “uh-scooz me”), I still want those”.
So, in good corporate retail customer service fashion, I regrouped (can one person regroup?) and let her know that for future reference, that this table was where one can deposit their unwanted items from their fitting room experience. She let me know that for future reference that I was rude, and proceeded to try to tell me off, not really aware that she still needed a fitting room and had to stand there in front of me until I let her into a room. Yes, I did want to take my time deliberately to get her into a room, but really, the Christmas overflow did that job for me. Then she call me a jackass. A customer that had witnessed this whole event walked up to me as if I were in a domestic violence commercial and said to me: “ You don’t have to take that type of treatment. I am going to let your manager know what just happened to you”. I wanted to ask her to ask them to raise my salary, but I figured that this might be too ambitious.
Anyway, my manager had a bit of ghetto attitude. She literally came back to the fitting room like she wanted to fight. (She really did come back there to me taking her headset off in a way that I have only seen ghetto girls take their earring off just before a fight). She was a great manager and really cared a lot about the other employees and me. So, she came back and asked me where this customer was. She knocked on the door, and after that, though they might have been different races, ghetto-ness is what came out of both of them. When ghetto girl said %^&* you, %^&*^ to my manager, that is when my manager lost it and went after her through the store. I have never been so happy to see a manager before, nor such an engaging cross-cultural feud. Over the headset about 3 minutes later, I heard my manager say, “That customer will not be returning to this store ever again”.
Of course, you can’t leave out the gentlemen in this arena. That was a facetious remark if you didn’t pick up the humor right there. It’s almost prerequisite that as men, ghetto guys have to put each other down so as to appear greater as you stand on the backs of the downtrodden. So, I am passing by a shop where friends of a certain relative of mine worked. One of them recognized me and started talking to me about how I was doing with school. The other guy with this friend, let’s call him “Stupid” for now,is a friend of my relative, and this relative has been always pretty disparaging of me, while never having amounted to anything. (Isn’t that always the truth – It’s the person that gained 200 pounds that wants to make fun of you because you are a little heavy, like they are the spokesperson for Weight Watchers.) So, Stupid says to me when I say that I have finished my work for my degree, “Oh, so you will be waiting on tables soon?” Now, Stupid is meeting me for the first time and I don’t want to cause a scene, but does he really know me like that to even come out of his face and say something like that? Of course, to try futilely to clean up his comment, he adds that he knows a couple of graduates that are still working at restaurants and such. I had to let him know that even if I were working at a restaurant, I would definitely be making more money than he was or could. Then the subject came up about my major. Stupid mentions that it was ridiculous for me to be an English major since I grew up speaking English. Besides the obvious example of his lack of English ability to demonstrate that growing up in an English speaking country does not speak to your ability to speak or write the language, I had to help him to understand that, no, Stupid, I did not study verbs and adjectives, that this major deals with literature. Then I had to break it down for him that, yet again, with my experience, degree, and ability, I would definitely be able to get a job doing something much more productive than his present occupation of standing on the street corner. (I don’t know that to be a fact, but I felt better being under that impression.) And still, he appeared unfazed and relentless in his ghetto self-righteousness, looking down upon me because I don’t feel the need to sell drugs, have various children out of wedlock with odd names and crazy mothers, or scratch my genitals and hold onto them for dear life at every waking moment.
On the way to finish this chapter, I was almost accosted by an 8-year-old boy who gave me the meanest scowl that I have seen this side of the world. (The ghetto term for this is that gave me an “ice grill”.) He was on a little bike, appropriate for his age, and drove up next to me and, while still pedaling, slowed down and stared me down like I had stolen his ice cream. He then peddled away, about 30 feet more, and then, for no apparent reason, stopped, threw the bike down and sat down on the ground with a look on his face that said, I have had it, and I am not taking anymore from you, this bike, or this day. The only thing that I could think of that could have fueled his anger was that I had just been in the bodega (corner store) and I bought a strawberry soda (which you can only purchase in the ghetto, of course) and maybe I bought the last one.
Or not.
That’s just how the ghetto is. Peace out homies. It’s official like a referee with a whistle.
I heard a girl, we’ll call her Jen, say that her apartment was ghetto because it did not have a lot of furniture.
Really, Jen? Really?
I was listening to a top 40 radio station and a caller, let’s call her Megan, calls in, commenting on a discussion about whether the DJ should wear his hat to the back or not. She says that this is so ghetto. From her voice, I made the assumption that she was not exactly the princess of the ghetto. I mean that she was not calling from the third floor apartment in the projects, if you know what I mean. Now, the way she says “ghetto” is the same tone that her mother would probably use when saying “urban”, “trashy”, “trailer trash”, or “ this milk is spoiled”, with her nose turned up, as she clutches her pearls. It occurred to me that she meant ghetto as in “slumming”, “being rebellious”.
However, the way that she said it was disturbing in a twofold sense – for the aforementioned reason and a second one.
As a person of color, there is an unwritten rule: I can say anything about my family, but you can’t. Not even about my most pathetic, annoying relative. The same applies here. Similarly, people of color in general have been exposed to distressful socioeconomic situations in this country and, thus, have had to know the ghetto. Meanwhile, in recent times, Megans across the country have come to idolize 50 Cent as the newest teen icon and Jay-Z gets played, in the most edited form, on Top 40 radio. From these rappers and icons talking about the ghetto and their experiences, Megans now believe that they understand the ghetto. So, since these guys wear their hats backwards, Megan believes that that is so ghetto, since she now is a bona fide expert in ghetto-ness. Little does she realize that most fashions today originated from the ghetto. Before Paris Hilton got extensions, Lakisha and Ronisha were rocking them like they were going out of style. This whole messy hair trend is what people with straight hair do to try to emulate an afro. And don’t let us forget about the trend of wearing panchos, or eating chips and salsa. El barrio, the ghetto, places where you have to “make do” with what you have create trends that eventually cost too much for the people who started them to afford their high priced counterparts. The problem is that people then making the following three associations:
1. that all people of color are ghetto (Just look at Traci Bingham and that proves me correct.
2. that ghetto is a term that only applies to just Blacks and Latinos (Tanya Harding and most guests of Jerry Springer that are not Black or Latino are proof of this)
3. and that everything connected to the ghetto is bad (Fried Chicken, basketball, and double dutch (which is now a national sport))
Thus, I guess my reaction to Megan was because I felt that she would need to really have some inkling of understanding in her life as to what is the ghetto experience before she could comment on it.
What does the word ghetto mean to you?
To some people, it means a neighborhood, like, a ghetto, what the word originally meant. It comes from an Italian dialectical word ghèto which meant a foundry, or a place where a foundation is built. It referred to an island where the Jews were forced to live isolated. The word comes from the word ghétar which means to cast out, which comes from the word jactare in Latin that means to throw. Yes, it was important for me to write all of that.
So, to others, it refers to where they live. It refers to a place that is not so rich, no so well kept, maybe projects or “low income housing”. We’re thinking the hood, the block, an area with many of what is commonly referred to as “the corner”. That is important to remember because as the suburban sprawl has reared its ugly little head, so has the elimination of corners. Have you noticed that the richer that an area is, the less corners that it has? These areas have more soft, curvy, continuous sidewalks, giving the impression of a completely harmonious and connected society. Ghetto mentality would equate “soft corners” with being a punk. Honestly, put the suburban street against the ghetto corner and I think we all know who’s winning the fight. Corners tend to be gathering places, especially in what some people call the ghetto. I think that is because this is the best vantage place to see everything, and if you are living in the ghetto, you are probably outside because you are trying to see what’s going on. Thus, the corner is the best seat in the house. I hope that I don’t sound too distant from the topic, although I doubt that the Ghetto Residential Association is going to come down on me too hard if I did. The point is that while it almost hurts me to see people live in such economic strain, it also hurts me to see people characterize whole races of people as what they consider to be the ghetto.
I lived close enough to the ghetto to know where it was, and not to go there. Although the word is bourgeois, the pronunciation “boo-zhee” refers to people like how I am sometimes, people of color that are viewed as viewing themselves too high or too cultured for the ghetto. I personally don’t think that I think of myself as either, but just that it is not my element. For example, I remember that people would mention to me in elementary and high school when our city first got recycling bins for each house that their ghetto areas did not receive any bins, but my area, which was not ghetto, did. This is when I first noticed the disparity. And then in more conversations, I realized that our lives were so different. These kids related to the things that they saw in “Boyz in the Hood” and movies like that. I did not even see the movie until maybe two years ago, and when I did, I did not relate to it. Some of their stories of tough love from their parents, and economic depression made my complaints about anything seem all but ridiculous. These kids had seen people sell drugs, take drugs, get shot, shoot people, and show wild reckless abandon. The most that I had ever seen was what I saw on TV. The wildest thing that had ever happened to me was that I cut school. As I did not relate, this pushed me further and further away from them, to the point that, yes, I became what they pronounce as “boo-zhee”.
Be that at as it may, whenever you even remotely know someone from the ghetto, you will learn a little about the ghetto attitude. Being ghetto. To me, it is not what a lot of people think. I have noticed that the word ghetto has now come to be the PC way for saying that something is “like black people, like street people, lower-class”. I’ve heard certain people say things like that they were living ghetto, because they were living on a little bit of money, or in a ragged apartment, etc. I think that it is one of those terms that you have to be familiar with to use. I would never describe my great day as “gnarly”, not because I don’t have days that fit in with the meaning of that word, but the lifestyle associated with people that use the word “gnarly” as slang is not mine. In case you were wondering, “gnarly” actually has a standard meaning, which means twisted into a state of deformity. Gnarl is a verb. Don’t say you never learned anything from my book.
Now the ghetto attitude is definitely very contagious. I am going to sound like a stuffed shirt trying to explain hip-hop to the country club right now, but here goes:
The ghetto attitude is a no holds barred*, “I will break you into small pieces and then come back with my whole family and beat up your whole family, grandma against grandma” type of mantra. It is caused by being in situations, both economic and social, that back one against a wall, which forces one to fight like fire and learn how to take care of oneself. Having been pushed to that limit, or living on that limit all the time though, makes one on the defensive all of the time. A simple look turns into a challenge. Any statement not blatantly positive becomes a possible slight. It creates a very edgy, tense situation.
What happens though also is that this resistance of outside influences often means that advances toward higher education or better socioeconomic station, or at least proper diction and decorum, are also viewed as demonstrations of direct opposition to ghetto-ness and those who live in it. This sometimes means that people who speak well or are more educated are shunned and viewed as outsiders and inferior in terms of street credibility (make sure to sign me up for that degree) and also, acting as if one has ever gone to any form of school is often viewed as subordination from the code of ghetto ethics.
*(Is “no holds barred” a wrestling term? Like no type of hold is barred, which means that it’s kind of free for all? Did I just figure that out all by myself? Hmmm…)
Anyway, three thoughts come to mind.
My father went to one of his doctors and upon leaving the office, requested a referral form from the ghetto girl at the desk. She insisted three times to my father that he has already received a referral, to which my father replied each time that no, he hadn’t and that the doctor had just sent to get one from the desk. On the last time that my father asked, ghetto girl says, “You already got one”. It could have been the bad English, or the ghetto attitude that the girl displayed, but this upset my father so much that he left. My mother returned to ask again for the referral, and this time, ghetto girl became irate. The doctor was standing by and tried to ascertain the problem. The girl showed him that, yes, she had given my father a referral. The problem was that what she called a referral was actually a receipt. The Doctor asks ghetto girl if she made a habit of filing the papers that the doctor prepared for patients. She said yes. As the doctor is looking through the files, he asks if she files in alphabetical order. She says, “What you mean, LMNOP?”
I rest my case. But wait, there’s more.
I mentioned in the “Chicken and Jeans” Chapter that I had someone throw a pair of jeans at me. This was my experience with ghetto shopper at Christmastime. Apparently, ghetto shopper was not too observant that I was using the folding table to fold the pile of clothes that was taller than I. How anyone could miss it, I am not sure, but she decided that she needed to toss a pair of jeans onto the table as I am folding, despite the fact that I was in the middle of folding clothes. This ire of her disregard for my oh-so important work of folding (If I have to pretend like folding clothes is important to me, so much so that I am getting paid to do so, then everyone else better play along) metamorphosed into rage when she hurled the jeans at me, and in the process the sensor tag on the jeans hit me in the wrist. (Maybe she didn’t hurl them in hindsight, but at the time, it seemed like she was pitching a baseball at me.)
After this, since she threw the jeans onto the folding table, I folded them, so as not to lose my rhythm and also to keep from throwing those jeans at her, or better yet, removing the sensor tag from the jeans and inserting it into her skull. She then increased the level of her audacity and said to me, “Excuse me (pronounce like “uh-scooz me”), I still want those”.
So, in good corporate retail customer service fashion, I regrouped (can one person regroup?) and let her know that for future reference, that this table was where one can deposit their unwanted items from their fitting room experience. She let me know that for future reference that I was rude, and proceeded to try to tell me off, not really aware that she still needed a fitting room and had to stand there in front of me until I let her into a room. Yes, I did want to take my time deliberately to get her into a room, but really, the Christmas overflow did that job for me. Then she call me a jackass. A customer that had witnessed this whole event walked up to me as if I were in a domestic violence commercial and said to me: “ You don’t have to take that type of treatment. I am going to let your manager know what just happened to you”. I wanted to ask her to ask them to raise my salary, but I figured that this might be too ambitious.
Anyway, my manager had a bit of ghetto attitude. She literally came back to the fitting room like she wanted to fight. (She really did come back there to me taking her headset off in a way that I have only seen ghetto girls take their earring off just before a fight). She was a great manager and really cared a lot about the other employees and me. So, she came back and asked me where this customer was. She knocked on the door, and after that, though they might have been different races, ghetto-ness is what came out of both of them. When ghetto girl said %^&* you, %^&*^ to my manager, that is when my manager lost it and went after her through the store. I have never been so happy to see a manager before, nor such an engaging cross-cultural feud. Over the headset about 3 minutes later, I heard my manager say, “That customer will not be returning to this store ever again”.
Of course, you can’t leave out the gentlemen in this arena. That was a facetious remark if you didn’t pick up the humor right there. It’s almost prerequisite that as men, ghetto guys have to put each other down so as to appear greater as you stand on the backs of the downtrodden. So, I am passing by a shop where friends of a certain relative of mine worked. One of them recognized me and started talking to me about how I was doing with school. The other guy with this friend, let’s call him “Stupid” for now,is a friend of my relative, and this relative has been always pretty disparaging of me, while never having amounted to anything. (Isn’t that always the truth – It’s the person that gained 200 pounds that wants to make fun of you because you are a little heavy, like they are the spokesperson for Weight Watchers.) So, Stupid says to me when I say that I have finished my work for my degree, “Oh, so you will be waiting on tables soon?” Now, Stupid is meeting me for the first time and I don’t want to cause a scene, but does he really know me like that to even come out of his face and say something like that? Of course, to try futilely to clean up his comment, he adds that he knows a couple of graduates that are still working at restaurants and such. I had to let him know that even if I were working at a restaurant, I would definitely be making more money than he was or could. Then the subject came up about my major. Stupid mentions that it was ridiculous for me to be an English major since I grew up speaking English. Besides the obvious example of his lack of English ability to demonstrate that growing up in an English speaking country does not speak to your ability to speak or write the language, I had to help him to understand that, no, Stupid, I did not study verbs and adjectives, that this major deals with literature. Then I had to break it down for him that, yet again, with my experience, degree, and ability, I would definitely be able to get a job doing something much more productive than his present occupation of standing on the street corner. (I don’t know that to be a fact, but I felt better being under that impression.) And still, he appeared unfazed and relentless in his ghetto self-righteousness, looking down upon me because I don’t feel the need to sell drugs, have various children out of wedlock with odd names and crazy mothers, or scratch my genitals and hold onto them for dear life at every waking moment.
On the way to finish this chapter, I was almost accosted by an 8-year-old boy who gave me the meanest scowl that I have seen this side of the world. (The ghetto term for this is that gave me an “ice grill”.) He was on a little bike, appropriate for his age, and drove up next to me and, while still pedaling, slowed down and stared me down like I had stolen his ice cream. He then peddled away, about 30 feet more, and then, for no apparent reason, stopped, threw the bike down and sat down on the ground with a look on his face that said, I have had it, and I am not taking anymore from you, this bike, or this day. The only thing that I could think of that could have fueled his anger was that I had just been in the bodega (corner store) and I bought a strawberry soda (which you can only purchase in the ghetto, of course) and maybe I bought the last one.
Or not.
That’s just how the ghetto is. Peace out homies. It’s official like a referee with a whistle.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
So here goes my debut in the Twitter World.
I struggled for a day or so about whether I should attempt to insert myself into this world of instant communication married with celebrity called Twitter. I considered whether it was an exercise of vanity to think oneself so important that anyone would need or want to know what I am doing more quickly than a call or text would inform.
And then I had a "eureka" moment of sorts.
Why do we care anything about most of the people who are celebrities anyway?
Because they give us some type of distraction, something else to consider, something else to love, loathe, abhor, covet, excite...
Someone is going to take that spot in our lives and why can't it be me?
Seriously, I think it is a fascinating concept for people to be able to interface with so many people and I look forward to this new venture.
I look forward to sharing more
I struggled for a day or so about whether I should attempt to insert myself into this world of instant communication married with celebrity called Twitter. I considered whether it was an exercise of vanity to think oneself so important that anyone would need or want to know what I am doing more quickly than a call or text would inform.
And then I had a "eureka" moment of sorts.
Why do we care anything about most of the people who are celebrities anyway?
Because they give us some type of distraction, something else to consider, something else to love, loathe, abhor, covet, excite...
Someone is going to take that spot in our lives and why can't it be me?
Seriously, I think it is a fascinating concept for people to be able to interface with so many people and I look forward to this new venture.
I look forward to sharing more
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