but I know the week very well.
it's the week where all i listen to is metal. when the words "destroy" "dismember" and "disembody" pop into my mental vocabulary on a daily basis. I find that I just like to say them all quietly to myself. It's the week where everyone constantly asks me "what's wrong?" because my face is all expression-less and telling all of my secrets. It's the week where I only want cheese covered carbs, sit in a sweaty Domino's for 15 minutes to find the much more delicious Two Boots was already on my kitchen table.
This is hell week. and it's not even the one that involves my uterus.
So I realized a small part of why I hate my job so much. The uniform. I've never had to wear a uniform before. I've been asked to look like every other person in the room- each outfit more ill-fitting than the last. There is a very strong correlation between how I feel about my appearance and my attitude. In order for my 'tude to be on positive end of the Sassa-frass to Sarcasti-frass scale, I must be pleased with my appearance.
Unfortunately, wearing an all black suit that doesn't fit properly, accompanied a t-shirt with a neckline so high even a nun would laugh and all black sneakers is so unfashionable it's a mystery people buy clothing from me. But I digress.
I just ate a medium Domino's pizza and a slice of Two Boots. I'm going to work on this Pacifico Clara and take a phone call. Excuse me, life.
28.8.09
big fish eats the little one.
Starts off around seven a.m.
You haul to work after spending an hour getting your hair right and order coffee at Starbucks. You hate the woman in front of your for ordering a feta cheese wrap at 9 A.M.- you hate the barista more for not taking your order while she waits. It's a regular tall pike place. It would've been fast.
Work bores you and you almost fall asleep standing. You drink coffee on the floor just to see how much shit you can get away with for $11 dollars an hour. On the 60 minutes you get to yourself, you read in the sunlight and combine it with Radiohead. It reminds you of sunbathing on the rooftop in Brooklyn. Pleasure. Time passes and suddenly you're being held over late and miss a book release party in Santa Monica.
On your way home, you decide that "Night Flight," playing at Cinefamily might be a good idea. You buy a ticket. Wendy O. Williams does some talking and you remember why you love women in the punk scene. The Tacate is free and you hold 12 oz of pee for over an hour.
After the movie, your companion reminds you that you're both listed for a Matt and Kim show at El Ray. You enjoy your first cab ride in Los Angeles and laugh about how tourists must feel in NY.
At the show, you feel proud of the friends you never really made that are on the stage. In some strange way you've watched them grow (not-so-much musically, but definitely in popularity), and you are happy for them. They are doing what they want to, living their dream and making money doing so. Your tolerance for vodka is too high and the $20 dollars wasted on drinks should've gone to new shoes. Your toes hurt.
The walk home is three miles. You share some story about being called a racist at work that makes your friend rest her a brick walk in laughter. In reflective tones you both speak of stealing commercial property in youthful drunken adventures. Somehow in six years, you've grown enough to look back on the time as though it were decades ago.
After arriving home to a restless dog, you take her out for a spin. She leads the way, and you fantasize about writing yourself to sleep.
It happens. It all happened.
You haul to work after spending an hour getting your hair right and order coffee at Starbucks. You hate the woman in front of your for ordering a feta cheese wrap at 9 A.M.- you hate the barista more for not taking your order while she waits. It's a regular tall pike place. It would've been fast.
Work bores you and you almost fall asleep standing. You drink coffee on the floor just to see how much shit you can get away with for $11 dollars an hour. On the 60 minutes you get to yourself, you read in the sunlight and combine it with Radiohead. It reminds you of sunbathing on the rooftop in Brooklyn. Pleasure. Time passes and suddenly you're being held over late and miss a book release party in Santa Monica.
On your way home, you decide that "Night Flight," playing at Cinefamily might be a good idea. You buy a ticket. Wendy O. Williams does some talking and you remember why you love women in the punk scene. The Tacate is free and you hold 12 oz of pee for over an hour.
After the movie, your companion reminds you that you're both listed for a Matt and Kim show at El Ray. You enjoy your first cab ride in Los Angeles and laugh about how tourists must feel in NY.
At the show, you feel proud of the friends you never really made that are on the stage. In some strange way you've watched them grow (not-so-much musically, but definitely in popularity), and you are happy for them. They are doing what they want to, living their dream and making money doing so. Your tolerance for vodka is too high and the $20 dollars wasted on drinks should've gone to new shoes. Your toes hurt.
The walk home is three miles. You share some story about being called a racist at work that makes your friend rest her a brick walk in laughter. In reflective tones you both speak of stealing commercial property in youthful drunken adventures. Somehow in six years, you've grown enough to look back on the time as though it were decades ago.
After arriving home to a restless dog, you take her out for a spin. She leads the way, and you fantasize about writing yourself to sleep.
It happens. It all happened.
20.8.09
freewrite #4
night-time. let's lie for a moment, under the porch lights.
inflamed irises, cornfields, you see:
"everything from where we stand,
to the cliffs over yonder, will be yours"
Did you hear? Did you hear?
The arthritic bones of kings past are cracking
whips and loading their guns! Running to reclaim!
What is theirs? What is there?
I heard the weasels come first. Sneaky bastards.
A warning unheeded, instead i asked you to rest with me for a moment.
You seemed so weary; i wanted the calls of crickets
to guide me to visions of cities in flames
Through the yellowing glow of the porch lamps
Everything is burning.
The snakes finally came to carry us under
i never did claim that territory
fore it was never mine. it was that moment
that belonged to me. the brittle bones
barged through like breached births-
Proclaiming Wars on surrendered soldiers
it must be turned around.
they can have it back- leave me here
with the glow, the warmth, the insects...
swallowed by the embers.
inflamed irises, cornfields, you see:
"everything from where we stand,
to the cliffs over yonder, will be yours"
Did you hear? Did you hear?
The arthritic bones of kings past are cracking
whips and loading their guns! Running to reclaim!
What is theirs? What is there?
I heard the weasels come first. Sneaky bastards.
A warning unheeded, instead i asked you to rest with me for a moment.
You seemed so weary; i wanted the calls of crickets
to guide me to visions of cities in flames
Through the yellowing glow of the porch lamps
Everything is burning.
The snakes finally came to carry us under
i never did claim that territory
fore it was never mine. it was that moment
that belonged to me. the brittle bones
barged through like breached births-
Proclaiming Wars on surrendered soldiers
it must be turned around.
they can have it back- leave me here
with the glow, the warmth, the insects...
swallowed by the embers.
15.8.09
freewrite #3
"Fuck."
That is it. Everything else they tell you, about the final thoughts a person has before their brain splatters, before their hearts give in and their inner-most bowels escape their physical being, comes down to four letters. Those memories of the first time you held your eldest child, or the way your father pulled your ear as he kissed your cheeks before school in the morning...
Gone.
Fuck. You really wanted to believe that they, those nuances of your mother, sisters, best friends- would be yours. Forever. Unfortunately, when you choked on that cherry pit, watching Pretty in Pink, alone- again, you had to learn that finite nature of "forever." Much shorter than you presumed.
Remember being a door monitor in 6th grade so that you could escape the trenches of Ms. Somer's English class a bit earlier than the other students? Standing the hall just before the bell and watching your peers flood into the corridor... Knowing that their backpacks had found lumbar lodgings long before the bell had sounded?
Remember it now, because you won't then.
There was a night after a field trip to Philadelphia, when you stared at the phone for hours before finally calling. At 12 you may not have understood the duties of the term, but you really wanted one. When he said that he would be your boyfriend you shreaked. When you kissed, you realized the difference between 5'5" and his 5'1", you fled. Not knowing that it would be years before it happened again- four, to be exact.
But that one has vanished now, too.
All you know now is this... fuck
That is it. Everything else they tell you, about the final thoughts a person has before their brain splatters, before their hearts give in and their inner-most bowels escape their physical being, comes down to four letters. Those memories of the first time you held your eldest child, or the way your father pulled your ear as he kissed your cheeks before school in the morning...
Gone.
Fuck. You really wanted to believe that they, those nuances of your mother, sisters, best friends- would be yours. Forever. Unfortunately, when you choked on that cherry pit, watching Pretty in Pink, alone- again, you had to learn that finite nature of "forever." Much shorter than you presumed.
Remember being a door monitor in 6th grade so that you could escape the trenches of Ms. Somer's English class a bit earlier than the other students? Standing the hall just before the bell and watching your peers flood into the corridor... Knowing that their backpacks had found lumbar lodgings long before the bell had sounded?
Remember it now, because you won't then.
There was a night after a field trip to Philadelphia, when you stared at the phone for hours before finally calling. At 12 you may not have understood the duties of the term, but you really wanted one. When he said that he would be your boyfriend you shreaked. When you kissed, you realized the difference between 5'5" and his 5'1", you fled. Not knowing that it would be years before it happened again- four, to be exact.
But that one has vanished now, too.
All you know now is this... fuck
11.8.09
*edit* to spilling the beans
My previous post was not meant to come off as Anti-Puerto Rican at all. I was alerted to the imbalance of the entry via a message on facebook:
I was using the anecdote about my views of Puerto Rican girls and my youth, as a comparison to those I had of Mexican men, in my young-adulthood. In both situations, I have placed a certain blind-judgment on these two groups; my information being based on hearsay via my family and immediate surroundings for one, and then the media for the other. I do not believe that Puerto Ricans are receiving fair representation in the States- When they did, it was for 15 minutes in 1999 and I think it looked like this.
Yesterday's encounters were another wake up call for me. I realize how apathetic I've been about seeking knowledge about various cultures (except for the food, I'm very active in the realm of diverse food exposure). It was a very long version of a very rhetorical question: Why do I feel like we've leveled off in the progression of educated ethnic representations in popular culture? How far from a minstrel show have we really come?
Watching television and trying to relate to the people I see on it, reminds me of shopping for concealer in middle school: There were copious shades of white, 3 shades
of brown and none of them matched me.
That's all.
xx
hey atiya. this is totally random. but i saw your status about puerto ricans so i just had to read your blog. I think you did a really good job at mentioning the stereotypes about mexican men but i didnt feel the love for puerto rican women. i know that what you saw in new york was ridiculous but believe me were not all like that!
also good luck in tinseltown.
I was using the anecdote about my views of Puerto Rican girls and my youth, as a comparison to those I had of Mexican men, in my young-adulthood. In both situations, I have placed a certain blind-judgment on these two groups; my information being based on hearsay via my family and immediate surroundings for one, and then the media for the other. I do not believe that Puerto Ricans are receiving fair representation in the States- When they did, it was for 15 minutes in 1999 and I think it looked like this.
Yesterday's encounters were another wake up call for me. I realize how apathetic I've been about seeking knowledge about various cultures (except for the food, I'm very active in the realm of diverse food exposure). It was a very long version of a very rhetorical question: Why do I feel like we've leveled off in the progression of educated ethnic representations in popular culture? How far from a minstrel show have we really come?
Watching television and trying to relate to the people I see on it, reminds me of shopping for concealer in middle school: There were copious shades of white, 3 shades
of brown and none of them matched me.
That's all.
xx
spilling the beans
On my first visit to Los Angeles, I heard something that would stick with me for a long time:
Mexicans are the Puerto Ricans of LA.
Growing up, this whole P.C. Latino thing didn't exist in my neighborhood. There were the black people, the white people and the loud-ass-Puerto-Ricans (Jamaicans/all West Indians are also in this category).
FACT:
Puerto Rican teenage girls wore jeans so tight my mother always alluded to the idea that they were bound to induce yeast infections. These jeans were known as Puerto-Rican tight.
FACT:
They also had feet so small that buying Air Jordans was completely affordable because they'd never grew out of children sizes. If there feet were in the range of adult sizes they still bought them too small and walked Puerto-Rican-pigeon toed (unlike the natural pigeon toed walk).
FACT:
They still gelled down their "baby hair," long into adulthood and definitely definitely wore brown lipliner with like pink/white lipstick.
These were just facts. I didn't make them up, these things are what I saw with my very own child-eyes and overheard with my very own child-ears.
They were an "other." A group of people that I didn't know anything about, beyond this inner-city, outsider-view of their lives. When an opportunity arrived for me to finally interact with groups of Puerto Rican girls in high school (my elementary and junior high schools were predominately white, as was I at the time), I found out that a lot of them were actually Dominicans and that the two peoples have some sort of long standing rivalry! Debacle!
So I gave up. Not that I was actively in pursuit of hanging with Puerto Ricans, in the first place. They were always hiding in the cubby holes of NY anyway, like Williamsburg or the Bronx. NO ONE ventured to those places... I mean the Bronx is still a deadzone; I can't name more than two neighborhoods there and they are both white ones (Riverdale and...).
Where am I going with this you ask? You see, Puerto Ricans remain as much of a mystery to me, as is group numero dos: Mexicanos.
Waiting for the buses late at night here in Los Angeles is sometimes a huge safety toss-up. I've often found myself suddenly understanding the mind of a hitchhiker: You can be on the street with crazies, or in a car with a crazy or two. Last night, in three separate locations, I was offered a ride back to my home, all of which I turned down... but it got me thinking. If the offers were made by young white Americans, would I have said yes?
Save for my thoughts of the Firefly Family, I would probably hop in. Chances are white kids living in Echo Park are not a part of a secret alliance of serial killers. But, alas, these ride-offers where not made by 20-something white kids on their way to/from Echo Park, they were DUN-DUN-DUN older Latino males. What the hell do I know about them and where did I learn it?
Well. I know that I've learned about Mexican people in two places: the building on the corner of Beverly Road and East 17th Street, in Brooklyn (where I learned to deal with whistling and cat calls at 12)- and movies. So, I googled a few things, the first of which was "Depictions of Mexicans in Film." Three out of the top ten results were about that Brad Pitt movie. The other articles touched on the negative portrayals of Mexican-Americans in films as the gangster-plaid-shirt-Vatos we all know (and fear). I Googled just "Mexicans," and this image popped up, supporting the aforementioned stereotypes.
image source: serious customs.
Immigrants and Gangsters. That's all they get. Oh and landscapers, thanks for all the gangs and gardeners Mexico! What the fuck is that Bullshit?? So we finally got Black people on t.v. Thank God we're using that opportunity so well with all the true magic on BET. So happy that pimping thing is STILL not dead. What happened to BET Nightly news? At least that attempted to educate black families. Where is Teen Summit? That tried to keep kids from joining gangs and having unprotected sex.
Back to Mexicans.
I know that I'm ranting. Please excuse me, but I am genuinely appalled at the state of American media. Throughout the 90s, Mexicans were portrayed as gangsters in any film about Southern L.A. Before that they were lawnmowers, fruit salesmen, pregnant or fucking rats (!!!) with accents that don't exist in real life.
Can we please get some non-whites on t.v. that do everyday things, that aren't some bizarro version of the Cosby family (I'm talking to you George Lopez, and Tyler Perry). Can I see some non-white 20-something that aren't belligerently drunk on a very fake episode of the Real-World? Some of us are not complete animals- okay, Big Wigs in Charge?
Gavin Mcinnes wrote an article called Fuck Single Mothers (figuratively) here. It not amazing, but in it he makes a few valid points; I am going to borrow this quote:
Speaking of which, can you imagine how much TV the children of single mothers watch? It boggles my mind and their kids’ minds at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if the TV is constantly on. The adverse effects of this kind of half-assed parenting are pretty evident all over America...
So yeah, please don’t pile on me some anecdotal evidence about your mother raising you all by herself and your turning out just fine. You’re one in a million—or, more accurately, one in a hundred. Although, come to think of it, it’s difficult to quantify the damage 35 hours of TV a week did to you, so maybe you are damaged and the stats just don’t know it yet.
That's me! I thought I was fine! Turns out, I might be racist by way of ignorance. So thank you T.V., movies and magazines for teaching me (jack-shit) about these mystery people. Finding out you are slightly racist doesn't just happen every day. Oh wait. Thankfully most of my friends are white, and properly represented in film, t.v., music, print media, and fashion. I've got you guys all figured out.
xx.
And P.S. like that Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, some of those pesky Mexicans are PERUVIAN or GUATEMALAN, so if you're committed to your blind hate, as least get it right.
10.8.09
8.8.09
5.8.09
these words have nothing to do with each other. or me.
Can't tell the difference between what I want
What I get and what I can have.
Shattered like glass, falling off that pedestal
Shouldn't have gotten so high in the first place
And I shouldn't have let you slip.
Broken dolls where is your mother-facturer?
Who made you out of shit?
Effervescent. Charming.
I'm so sorry you had to see me this way
I know you and what you're thinking
And I am a lot prettier with the plague.
I'll never have those consistently rose red
Inflamed lips. Allow me to fill your vacant eyes
there's a new vision out on the rise.
death is on a tangent
am i the only one listening?
speaking in tongues
and i can see her inside yours.
i'll peel those lids off like foreskin
you'll see me before it's too late
"don't smile
in the dark, it's the only way they'll see you"
that's what she told me and i didn't forget it.
but it was only me and a mirror in there
i think that's how i lost your necklace
and tumbled down the flight of spiraling steps.
27 seemed like a good amount at the time.
Now. Where was I?
The other night I died in my dream. I witnessed someone get shot with this futuristic dart gun. When assailant realized what I'd witnessed he suddenly appeared before me, and promptly shot me in the neck with a heavy dosage of morphine. I looked back at my mother, reached for her, gasped deeply and woke up instantly, lungs full of the same air.
This morning when someone in my dream described the shooting they'd witnessed in front of their building, I saw the ocean of blood they mentioned and the crashing crimson waves. It was really disturbing. There were children playing at the crime scene and birds sipping up the fluids. At the end of the dream, I was on the floor with my mother, crying and telling her that I loved her more than anything in the world. I woke up with wet cheeks.
They say the subconscious doesn't lie, and I believe that much. But why don't I ever know what the fuck it's saying to me?
What is going on?
What I get and what I can have.
Shattered like glass, falling off that pedestal
Shouldn't have gotten so high in the first place
And I shouldn't have let you slip.
Broken dolls where is your mother-facturer?
Who made you out of shit?
Effervescent. Charming.
I'm so sorry you had to see me this way
I know you and what you're thinking
And I am a lot prettier with the plague.
I'll never have those consistently rose red
Inflamed lips. Allow me to fill your vacant eyes
there's a new vision out on the rise.
death is on a tangent
am i the only one listening?
speaking in tongues
and i can see her inside yours.
i'll peel those lids off like foreskin
you'll see me before it's too late
"don't smile
in the dark, it's the only way they'll see you"
that's what she told me and i didn't forget it.
but it was only me and a mirror in there
i think that's how i lost your necklace
and tumbled down the flight of spiraling steps.
27 seemed like a good amount at the time.
Now. Where was I?
The other night I died in my dream. I witnessed someone get shot with this futuristic dart gun. When assailant realized what I'd witnessed he suddenly appeared before me, and promptly shot me in the neck with a heavy dosage of morphine. I looked back at my mother, reached for her, gasped deeply and woke up instantly, lungs full of the same air.
This morning when someone in my dream described the shooting they'd witnessed in front of their building, I saw the ocean of blood they mentioned and the crashing crimson waves. It was really disturbing. There were children playing at the crime scene and birds sipping up the fluids. At the end of the dream, I was on the floor with my mother, crying and telling her that I loved her more than anything in the world. I woke up with wet cheeks.
They say the subconscious doesn't lie, and I believe that much. But why don't I ever know what the fuck it's saying to me?
What is going on?
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