I've recently been treating the world as my very own personal decompression chamber. Decompression from what, though, is the question. I suppose that the obvious answer is my life as a grad student/slave-to-the-written word, but unlike most slaves, I chose my bondage. So I feel as if I can't really complain about that. And though it was a lot of reading and writing and thinking, more often than not, it was a good time. Good people were met. Good writing happened. Good drinks were drunk. Darn tootin'.
As a part of my learn-how-to-be-out-in-public-again-without-thinking-about-work rehibilitation, I went to see X-Men yesterday with Russ, Christina, and Emilio. It's a great movie, complete with momentous battles where the fate of humans and mutants alike balance on a very thin precipice and things could really go either way. What I like most is that I never know quite whom I'm rooting for to win these battles. On one hand, I, of course, want the X-men to win, since they're advocating that mutants and humans live in harmony and equality. And it'd be great for them not get a knock on their doors every 2-3 years, where a know-it-all Senator or Biologist stands on the other side, digging his toe into the ground and asking if the mutants can come out and play-aka-get-annhilated. That's just a pain. But on the other hand, I sympathize with the mutants who are tired of being persecuted and want their equality any way they can get it, even through violence. I know Magneto, the archvillian of the series, was a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp when he was a child and is tortured by the thought of all the people he could've saved if he had just known his powers. I understand why he's so sensitive when the odious talking heads start blabbing on national TV about "curing the mutant problem" or "cataloguing and separating all mutants." I understand Professor X, too, who just wants to help the general population understand mutants. I understand his hope that a peaceful existance, and if necessary, resistance, is not just the dream of a daisy wielders and most Canadians.
There's nothing like getting lost in a good fantasy. I've been a fan ever since I picked up Grimm's Fairy Tales as a seven year old and read The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Could there be a more glamorous fairy tale, beautiful women secretly getting in rowboats and dancing all night until the soles of their shoes were worn clear through? Now I realize that it was only a fantastical version of night life in Spain, but at the time, this chubby Midwestern girl didn't know anyone who stayed out past 8:00 on school nights. But as with X-Men, I wasn't sure whether I was rooting for those rebellious dancing girls or the simple guy-off-the-street-turned-investigator, who not only wanted his life spared, but one of the King's comely dancing daughters as a wife. It wasn't an either/or proposition.
In both cases, evil isn't particularly "evil" (the daughters just like to dance; Magneto is trying to save the world, albeit in an imperfect way), nor is good without flaws and weaknesses. I like my fantasy tinged with a bit of reality; in a sense, the essence of flaws and moral ambiguity makes the particulars that much more fantastical. Brad Bird said something to that effect on disc 2 of The Incredibles (my current obsession), that animating characters isn't about recreating reality, but distilling it.
And, as I think about it, that's why I need to decompress a little bit. As the odds-and-ends people in my life find out that I've just graduated, they all want to know what's next. And I tell them that besides my plans to go to a movie or finish some writing, I don't really know. Maybe it's why I'm hungering for fantasy lately and feel the urge to watch The Incredibles for the fiftieth time or tumble into the upside-down worlds of Murakami. In those worlds, you don't have these strict seperations between grad school and real life, nor do you get either/or propositions. It's both/and propositions that rule. Now that I've graduated, I don't want to feel limited by my choices -- I want to explore and expand into places that I might not otherwise. This is my time to distill reality.
In fantasy, everything is possible. Even it doesn't happen, the possibility that it might still exists. Maybe that's what hope is -- the culmination of possibility, even if it means ignoring logic for a while. Because logic is the opposite of superheroes and mutants and women who dance through the soles of their shoes.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Trying Not to Mistake Coincidence for Fate
In the novel I'm working on right now, the main character has an encounter in which she finds a stray German Shephard and mistakes it for the dog she grew up with -- one that's been dead for a very long time. I thought long and hard about a good dog name - I'm terrible at naming animals - and decided, in the end, that I would call this dog Roxie. I still wasn't sure, but I just went with it because as a writer, one of my fatal flaws is that I spend way too much time thinking up names. I obsess over them (so thanks, Jon, for the random name browser).
The other day, I was walking Tanya down a street I try not to walk her down too often because there's a huge dog that barks and snarls and throws itself against the fence when it sees other dogs. It's a German Shephard. When I walked by the other day and the dog started its mean routine, I heard the owner yell, "Roxie!" He yelled it again several more times, so I know I wasn't hearing things.
The dog in my novel is nothing like this dog, the complete opposite sort of dog, in fact, but it was still like some sort of cosmic connection to hear that the only German Shephard in my neighborhood is also named Roxie. And confirmation that I really do pick great animal names.
The other day, I was walking Tanya down a street I try not to walk her down too often because there's a huge dog that barks and snarls and throws itself against the fence when it sees other dogs. It's a German Shephard. When I walked by the other day and the dog started its mean routine, I heard the owner yell, "Roxie!" He yelled it again several more times, so I know I wasn't hearing things.
The dog in my novel is nothing like this dog, the complete opposite sort of dog, in fact, but it was still like some sort of cosmic connection to hear that the only German Shephard in my neighborhood is also named Roxie. And confirmation that I really do pick great animal names.
Monday, May 22, 2006
A Super Sweet Two Grand Proposition
I once knew a guy who had notoriously bad breath. I mean, really notorious. Alfred Hitchcock notorious. One day, as a group of us were walking upstairs to our lockers after second period, the guy behind him, out of the blue, said, "Dude - what stinks? Did you just fart?" He was waving his hand in front of his nose, as if it would disperse whatever foulity was in the air. The notorious guy turned around and smiled. "That's not a fart, man, that's my breath." At that, we all "oohed" and almost fell on the stairs laughing because let's face it, he said what we all knew. And in high school, that kind of self-awareness was funny.
During my junior year, I ended up sitting next to this notorious guy in study hall. This was before the evil reign of our study hall monitor Mrs. Kingsbury, who, though a real peach of a woman outside of class, made my afterschool life a living hell with all the clapping erasers I had to do for whispering without permission during her class. Back in the day, though, we had a study hall monitor who was always on the edge of insanity because of her racist, Nyquil-addicted kids. (That's a story for another day.) She was the sort of who sat there, looking out at us, wringing her hands and smiling politely, as if she was afraid we were on the verge of mounting up and slitting her throat. So not a lot of work took place in her study hall. The notorious guy and I were the only two juniors in the whole room and we ended up sitting next to each other. I got to know him a little bit, beyond the breath. He introduced me to bands like the Sex Pistols, the Stooges, and Husker Du -- he even gave me the CDs to take home and listen to on my own. When I popped in the Sex Pistols' Nevermind the Bollocks for the first time, I almost had a heart attack. This was during my obsessed-with-the-Steve-Miller-Band phase, so I wasn't quite prepared for the slurry electric pop of God Save the Queen. I hated it. I thought it sucked bollocks. (It took a few more years for me to learn what "bollocks" were -- at the time, I thought it was the British form of barracks, you know, where soliders sleep.)
The notorious guy had great taste in music, years ahead of most of my Ace of Base listening classmates. He tried to get me to come along for the musical ride, but I resisted and instead, bought myself a Hootie and the Blowfish album and bought him tubes of Tic-Tacs. Like me, many of my classmates - at least the ones I've kept in touch with - do not remember a whole lot about this guy now, apart from his horrible breath. We still tell the fart-breath story, as well as the story when, attempting to get a few laughs and pledge his undying respect for our science teacher, he wore a weightlifting body suit and passed out during the lecture. But I'll always remember him as the guy who introduced me to the Sex Pistols.
I've been thinking about him lately mostly because I spend a lot of time watching high schoolers on Mtv while at the gym. A lot of the shows - My Super Sweet 16, Once Upon a Prom, Tiara Girls - center on high schoolers, usually ones behaving badly. Very badly, in fact. My Super Sweet 16 has to be one of the most wretched shows ever to cross the airwaves, a show where cameras follow spoiled wealthy kids who throw tantrums if they don't get Eminem AND Beyonce to perform at the sixteenth birthday party. They throw tantrums for any reason, really -- these kids are very imaginative that way. At least once or twice during the show, I have to turn to the empty stairstepper next to me and make a face of total disgust. Just to show God or the cool trainer working out behind me that though I'm watching, I'm also repulsed by what I'm seeing and hearing. But I keep watching it because I get interested in figuring out these pissy little brats.
When I was sixteen, I'm not sure anyone I knew had a sweet sixteen party and if they did, it was just at their house or at its most flamboyant, Luigi's Pizza. So it totally blows my mind to watch sixteen year olds, complicit with their enabling parents, drop $100,000 on a party, not including the Mercedes or BMW convertible that most of them inevitably get at the end of the evening. I'm incredulous when they design themes for their parties like EVERYTHING'S-PINK! and then spend $500 dying their two poodles pink or yell at the longsuffering dressmaker (making them a $900 dress or $1100 suit) for being an idiot and a clod. I feel embarassed for them when they gather their whole school to hand out 100 invitations and then, the people who weren't invited have to stand there, feeling humiliated -- granted, they know these people are totally lame, but it still hurts to be shown on camera as someone who didn't make the cool cut. I look at these shuffling teenagers, trying to shrug it off, and I see the notorious guy. I see the girl who fell three times during her dance routine at a pep rally, exposing her clumsiness and red bloomers to the whole school. I see the kooky guy who'd always say, "Up in this piece" and sing Hootie and the Blowfish until we'd all yell at him to shut up. I see N, the coolest girl in the class, with her two-toned bowling shoes and cat-eyed sunglasses and jar of bubbles. I'm sure I'm in there somewhere, too, curly blonde frizz and wearing the plaid pajama pants that I wore during gym class. Or that super cool County Seat sweater.
One of the recurrent themes I've noticed in my Super Sweet 16 viewing experience is this: "I want to throw the best party ever, so that everyone will always remember me and talk about me forever." Or to that effect. (One never knows how exactly to paraphrase teenagers.) These parties are not just for a good time or - imagine it! - to gather friends to celebrate an American coming of age a-la-Molly-Ringwald. Every single person on the shows I've seen has said they hope to throw a party that will be remembered. For-e-ver. They want everyone's memories of high school to be bound up in their killer bash. They, like so many before them, are looking for immortality and right now, it's appearing viable in the form of a very expensive birthday party. But that kind of notoriety is always a cosmic cream pie in the face. You don't have to read the horoscopes or listen to Bob Dylan to know that much.
I can very palpably imagine the attendees of these parties sitting around in ten years and raving about that party what's-her-name threw for her 16th birthday. Isn't she a broke hooker now? Or a chain smoking Mom of three? That part of the conversation will be quick and uninteresting, like ripping off a bandaid. But minutes, hours even, will be spent talking about when her heel broke, when he stuck a finger into the cake on a dare, when her friend finally found the nerve to ask that one guy to dance. But its host? A footnote...at best.
No one can force notoriety. I'm sure that the girl who fell three times in the pep rally wishes that all of us in the audience would forget her red bloomers forever. I'm sure the notorious guy hopes that we're not all still talking about the time he passed out in science class. I'm sorry to break it to them, but these are probably the moments I'll take to my grave. We all have those moments, I think, no matter how cool we were. I sometimes wonder if my eighth grade crush, Matt Nadelhoffer, tells people the story of the girl sitting next to him at an ice cream social who farted during the prayer. (Yes, I'm talking about me.) But those non-cool times, the moments when people fell apart, hit emotional iceburgs, were unabshedly their complicated, quirky selves -- that's what I'll remember. FOR-E-VER. Maybe I should tell the bratty kids that. And that you don't have to spend two grand to learn about the Sex Pistols.
During my junior year, I ended up sitting next to this notorious guy in study hall. This was before the evil reign of our study hall monitor Mrs. Kingsbury, who, though a real peach of a woman outside of class, made my afterschool life a living hell with all the clapping erasers I had to do for whispering without permission during her class. Back in the day, though, we had a study hall monitor who was always on the edge of insanity because of her racist, Nyquil-addicted kids. (That's a story for another day.) She was the sort of who sat there, looking out at us, wringing her hands and smiling politely, as if she was afraid we were on the verge of mounting up and slitting her throat. So not a lot of work took place in her study hall. The notorious guy and I were the only two juniors in the whole room and we ended up sitting next to each other. I got to know him a little bit, beyond the breath. He introduced me to bands like the Sex Pistols, the Stooges, and Husker Du -- he even gave me the CDs to take home and listen to on my own. When I popped in the Sex Pistols' Nevermind the Bollocks for the first time, I almost had a heart attack. This was during my obsessed-with-the-Steve-Miller-Band phase, so I wasn't quite prepared for the slurry electric pop of God Save the Queen. I hated it. I thought it sucked bollocks. (It took a few more years for me to learn what "bollocks" were -- at the time, I thought it was the British form of barracks, you know, where soliders sleep.)
The notorious guy had great taste in music, years ahead of most of my Ace of Base listening classmates. He tried to get me to come along for the musical ride, but I resisted and instead, bought myself a Hootie and the Blowfish album and bought him tubes of Tic-Tacs. Like me, many of my classmates - at least the ones I've kept in touch with - do not remember a whole lot about this guy now, apart from his horrible breath. We still tell the fart-breath story, as well as the story when, attempting to get a few laughs and pledge his undying respect for our science teacher, he wore a weightlifting body suit and passed out during the lecture. But I'll always remember him as the guy who introduced me to the Sex Pistols.
I've been thinking about him lately mostly because I spend a lot of time watching high schoolers on Mtv while at the gym. A lot of the shows - My Super Sweet 16, Once Upon a Prom, Tiara Girls - center on high schoolers, usually ones behaving badly. Very badly, in fact. My Super Sweet 16 has to be one of the most wretched shows ever to cross the airwaves, a show where cameras follow spoiled wealthy kids who throw tantrums if they don't get Eminem AND Beyonce to perform at the sixteenth birthday party. They throw tantrums for any reason, really -- these kids are very imaginative that way. At least once or twice during the show, I have to turn to the empty stairstepper next to me and make a face of total disgust. Just to show God or the cool trainer working out behind me that though I'm watching, I'm also repulsed by what I'm seeing and hearing. But I keep watching it because I get interested in figuring out these pissy little brats.
When I was sixteen, I'm not sure anyone I knew had a sweet sixteen party and if they did, it was just at their house or at its most flamboyant, Luigi's Pizza. So it totally blows my mind to watch sixteen year olds, complicit with their enabling parents, drop $100,000 on a party, not including the Mercedes or BMW convertible that most of them inevitably get at the end of the evening. I'm incredulous when they design themes for their parties like EVERYTHING'S-PINK! and then spend $500 dying their two poodles pink or yell at the longsuffering dressmaker (making them a $900 dress or $1100 suit) for being an idiot and a clod. I feel embarassed for them when they gather their whole school to hand out 100 invitations and then, the people who weren't invited have to stand there, feeling humiliated -- granted, they know these people are totally lame, but it still hurts to be shown on camera as someone who didn't make the cool cut. I look at these shuffling teenagers, trying to shrug it off, and I see the notorious guy. I see the girl who fell three times during her dance routine at a pep rally, exposing her clumsiness and red bloomers to the whole school. I see the kooky guy who'd always say, "Up in this piece" and sing Hootie and the Blowfish until we'd all yell at him to shut up. I see N, the coolest girl in the class, with her two-toned bowling shoes and cat-eyed sunglasses and jar of bubbles. I'm sure I'm in there somewhere, too, curly blonde frizz and wearing the plaid pajama pants that I wore during gym class. Or that super cool County Seat sweater.
One of the recurrent themes I've noticed in my Super Sweet 16 viewing experience is this: "I want to throw the best party ever, so that everyone will always remember me and talk about me forever." Or to that effect. (One never knows how exactly to paraphrase teenagers.) These parties are not just for a good time or - imagine it! - to gather friends to celebrate an American coming of age a-la-Molly-Ringwald. Every single person on the shows I've seen has said they hope to throw a party that will be remembered. For-e-ver. They want everyone's memories of high school to be bound up in their killer bash. They, like so many before them, are looking for immortality and right now, it's appearing viable in the form of a very expensive birthday party. But that kind of notoriety is always a cosmic cream pie in the face. You don't have to read the horoscopes or listen to Bob Dylan to know that much.
I can very palpably imagine the attendees of these parties sitting around in ten years and raving about that party what's-her-name threw for her 16th birthday. Isn't she a broke hooker now? Or a chain smoking Mom of three? That part of the conversation will be quick and uninteresting, like ripping off a bandaid. But minutes, hours even, will be spent talking about when her heel broke, when he stuck a finger into the cake on a dare, when her friend finally found the nerve to ask that one guy to dance. But its host? A footnote...at best.
No one can force notoriety. I'm sure that the girl who fell three times in the pep rally wishes that all of us in the audience would forget her red bloomers forever. I'm sure the notorious guy hopes that we're not all still talking about the time he passed out in science class. I'm sorry to break it to them, but these are probably the moments I'll take to my grave. We all have those moments, I think, no matter how cool we were. I sometimes wonder if my eighth grade crush, Matt Nadelhoffer, tells people the story of the girl sitting next to him at an ice cream social who farted during the prayer. (Yes, I'm talking about me.) But those non-cool times, the moments when people fell apart, hit emotional iceburgs, were unabshedly their complicated, quirky selves -- that's what I'll remember. FOR-E-VER. Maybe I should tell the bratty kids that. And that you don't have to spend two grand to learn about the Sex Pistols.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
A Musical Question of Great Importance
Sheryl Crow is on almost every musical tribute and/or collection honoring other musicians.
Why?
Why?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
On My Mind Tonight:
I have a dog on my right typing arm, so this will probably be short...
How come headlights in the rearview mirror have suddenly become so aggressive? I feel like I'm being flashed continuously these days. Every headlight feels like an assault on my night-time driving. Russ says it's because there's a new kind of headlight, but I think people are becoming more and more jerky on the freeway.
Jesse Gloyd is right. Family Guy, regardless of its popularity, is not all that funny nor original. South Park, on the other hand, rules. So does Conan. But he's not animated.
I went to Claim Jumper last night, despite my strict No-Claim-Jumper, No-Cheesecake-Factory policy. Turns out, they serve good tap water. Darn.
A short piece of mine has been submitted to a neat collection. I'll keep you posted whether or not I get in.
The Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, is rockin'. I find myself wanting to illegally download all his albums now. But I'll refrain -- I'll wait until I get a job and/or money in the form of a contract, and then, indulge my Dylan-mania.
I will not see the DaVinci Code movie. I read the book and it sucked. Honestly, how many times did Dan Brown forget about the developing love-relationship between Sophie and Langdon and just stick in a random sentence about it at the most awkward times? I read the last chapter to my creative writing class and they laughed. And they were all just beginners. It says a lot about intuition, a la Blink.
Movies I do want to see: Brick, Friends with Money, Thank You For Smoking, Art School Confidential. But I don't want to see them badly enough to get my ass to the theater. I'm feeling happy to Netflix everything these days and stay home. I think that means I'm getting a.) old and b.) lame.
RipRap 28 turned out AMAZING. Props to Chad, Lee, Eitan, and me. But mostly Chad. Get your copy now. The reading was one of those events where every reader kept outshining the one before him/her. It made me so glad to be a writer, who might spend the rest of her life attending these reading thingys. Also, I must give extra props to Chad on his bold myspace song choice. Cry, indeed.
The Target food court is a suprisingly cool place to hang with a good friend. Thanks for the memories, Kristan.
Russ's birthday was on Tuesday and I took him to an amazing restaurant. As we sipped champagne, we got into a really passionate conversation about play and invention. I'm sure everyone around us, including the waiters, thought we were total posers.
His birthday hike is on Saturday. We're going to picnic in Monrovia Library Park. I'm going to administer the famous "Russell" quiz, but hopefully not humiliate him this year as I did last year. Want to know more? You'll have to email me.
I am tired. Tonight I had good wine. I might get to bed at a decent hour.
Or not.
How come headlights in the rearview mirror have suddenly become so aggressive? I feel like I'm being flashed continuously these days. Every headlight feels like an assault on my night-time driving. Russ says it's because there's a new kind of headlight, but I think people are becoming more and more jerky on the freeway.
Jesse Gloyd is right. Family Guy, regardless of its popularity, is not all that funny nor original. South Park, on the other hand, rules. So does Conan. But he's not animated.
I went to Claim Jumper last night, despite my strict No-Claim-Jumper, No-Cheesecake-Factory policy. Turns out, they serve good tap water. Darn.
A short piece of mine has been submitted to a neat collection. I'll keep you posted whether or not I get in.
The Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home, is rockin'. I find myself wanting to illegally download all his albums now. But I'll refrain -- I'll wait until I get a job and/or money in the form of a contract, and then, indulge my Dylan-mania.
I will not see the DaVinci Code movie. I read the book and it sucked. Honestly, how many times did Dan Brown forget about the developing love-relationship between Sophie and Langdon and just stick in a random sentence about it at the most awkward times? I read the last chapter to my creative writing class and they laughed. And they were all just beginners. It says a lot about intuition, a la Blink.
Movies I do want to see: Brick, Friends with Money, Thank You For Smoking, Art School Confidential. But I don't want to see them badly enough to get my ass to the theater. I'm feeling happy to Netflix everything these days and stay home. I think that means I'm getting a.) old and b.) lame.
RipRap 28 turned out AMAZING. Props to Chad, Lee, Eitan, and me. But mostly Chad. Get your copy now. The reading was one of those events where every reader kept outshining the one before him/her. It made me so glad to be a writer, who might spend the rest of her life attending these reading thingys. Also, I must give extra props to Chad on his bold myspace song choice. Cry, indeed.
The Target food court is a suprisingly cool place to hang with a good friend. Thanks for the memories, Kristan.
Russ's birthday was on Tuesday and I took him to an amazing restaurant. As we sipped champagne, we got into a really passionate conversation about play and invention. I'm sure everyone around us, including the waiters, thought we were total posers.
His birthday hike is on Saturday. We're going to picnic in Monrovia Library Park. I'm going to administer the famous "Russell" quiz, but hopefully not humiliate him this year as I did last year. Want to know more? You'll have to email me.
I am tired. Tonight I had good wine. I might get to bed at a decent hour.
Or not.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Breaking Through Blocks, Part 2, or "Si, Se Puede!"
I have never been much of a protestor, a disturber of the status quo. I attribute this, in part, to the fact that as a child, I was taught never to blow my nose in public nor rest my elbows on the table. I was told to soften my voice in public all the time and at home, told to talk louder because my mom and later, my grandma, couldn't hear me. My dad was very particular about sweeping the wood floors in our house without lifting the broom bristles from the floor and if I didn't (and he happened to be watching), he would let out a sigh and show me the right way to do it again. It never seemed that much different than how I was doing it, but I digress.
By the time I was twelve, I had this whole set of properlies to worry about and no time to think about larger issues, like say, the Gulf War or the Watts Riots. I was constantly concerned with how I did things, like eat a peanut-butter sandwich or run in gym class, and whether I was doing it correctly. I think my family was just trying to spare me the humiliation of doing these things in front of other people, people who really mattered, but they should've realized my twelve year old disposition, eager-to-please, self-conscious, and already an overthinker, only made this list of rules a neverending radio stream of "Shit -am I doing this right?" in my mind.
One of the first times I saw a confrontation in the locker room was in eighth grade. It was between Niki Walsh and Latoya Williams, two end-of-the-alphabet girls like myself, who I often sat by in classes or assemblies. They were arguing about racism and our school and, I think, but can't quite remember, accusing the other race of being too sensitive and of misunderstanding everything the other one did. They argued over the red benches and I sat at the end, barely breathing, watching out of the corner of my eyes while pulling on my socks very, very slowly. I remember feeling scared. I'd been taught not to fight (though my dad did advocate fist fighting), to keep quiet, to mind my manners, to be polite to people. I didn't know how to raise my voice like that. Girls and boys in the books I read always did, but I never connected that literature to my own life until I watched Niki and Latoya verbally go at each other until the bell rang.
Yesterday, I marched with with about 400,000 other people down Wilshire Blvd, protesting the fact that a group of people has been treated without much dignity, celebrating the fact that they are lifting their voices in protest about it all over the country. I feel a little bit proud that the two cities with the largest turnouts, Chicago and L.A., are the two places I hail from at this point in my life. I grew up around a lot of second generation Mexican-Americans whose parents didn't even bother to teach them Spanish. My aunt Fanny is from Mexico City, and though she is married to my uncle Billy and thus, a citizen, I believe that there was a point in her life in America where she was an immigrant without papers. The guys Russell works with, family guys, nice guys, hard workers, have no official papers; they are from a poor, agricultural part of Mexico and are here to work and to try and make life better for their kids rather than for themselves.
Speaking of these guys, I went to a birthday party for one of their daughters last summer. A lot of them are working on their English, and Russ and I are always trying out our lame Spanish, so we would talk in one language badly, then another. Some of them are already fluent and some of the husbands aren't even Latino -- one was from Iran and spoke four langugaes. After menudo, a comedian-clown, and fantastically sugary birthday cake, they turned up the music and all the adults began to dance. Young and old alike hopped out on the dance floor (the driveway) and started to salsa and sashay. The oldest guy, the patriarch of the family, is named Ephraim and I watched as he took his wife out on the dance floor and did a sort of salsafied box step with her, smiling and shy. Russ and I had to go soon after the dancing started, and before we went, Russ introduced me to Ephraim and his wife. He speaks no English at all, and neither does his wife, so there was a lot of hand gesturing, but somehow, we got the idea that he wanted us to dance. He wanted to see us. The others around him who heard him say this wanted us to dance, too, dance, dance, dance! they almost chanted. Immediately, my own little alarm bells went off. I'm not a great dancer and especially not with great dancers watching me. I shook my head and smiled, with that old thought that to do things, you have to do them correctly to avoid embarrassment.
And that's what was so great about the march yesterday. "Si se puede." Roughly translated, yes we can or yes it can be done. I marched and shouted and pronounced some of my Spanish words wrong, I bumped into people, I started conversations that I didn't know how to continue, and generally did a lot of things out of step. But for all the things I did wrong, I marched on and worried not about myself for once, but about something much larger.
Here are some of my favorite shots from yesterday. (I've posted all the shots from yesteday on my flickr account.) Enjoy.
By the time I was twelve, I had this whole set of properlies to worry about and no time to think about larger issues, like say, the Gulf War or the Watts Riots. I was constantly concerned with how I did things, like eat a peanut-butter sandwich or run in gym class, and whether I was doing it correctly. I think my family was just trying to spare me the humiliation of doing these things in front of other people, people who really mattered, but they should've realized my twelve year old disposition, eager-to-please, self-conscious, and already an overthinker, only made this list of rules a neverending radio stream of "Shit -am I doing this right?" in my mind.
One of the first times I saw a confrontation in the locker room was in eighth grade. It was between Niki Walsh and Latoya Williams, two end-of-the-alphabet girls like myself, who I often sat by in classes or assemblies. They were arguing about racism and our school and, I think, but can't quite remember, accusing the other race of being too sensitive and of misunderstanding everything the other one did. They argued over the red benches and I sat at the end, barely breathing, watching out of the corner of my eyes while pulling on my socks very, very slowly. I remember feeling scared. I'd been taught not to fight (though my dad did advocate fist fighting), to keep quiet, to mind my manners, to be polite to people. I didn't know how to raise my voice like that. Girls and boys in the books I read always did, but I never connected that literature to my own life until I watched Niki and Latoya verbally go at each other until the bell rang.
Yesterday, I marched with with about 400,000 other people down Wilshire Blvd, protesting the fact that a group of people has been treated without much dignity, celebrating the fact that they are lifting their voices in protest about it all over the country. I feel a little bit proud that the two cities with the largest turnouts, Chicago and L.A., are the two places I hail from at this point in my life. I grew up around a lot of second generation Mexican-Americans whose parents didn't even bother to teach them Spanish. My aunt Fanny is from Mexico City, and though she is married to my uncle Billy and thus, a citizen, I believe that there was a point in her life in America where she was an immigrant without papers. The guys Russell works with, family guys, nice guys, hard workers, have no official papers; they are from a poor, agricultural part of Mexico and are here to work and to try and make life better for their kids rather than for themselves.
Speaking of these guys, I went to a birthday party for one of their daughters last summer. A lot of them are working on their English, and Russ and I are always trying out our lame Spanish, so we would talk in one language badly, then another. Some of them are already fluent and some of the husbands aren't even Latino -- one was from Iran and spoke four langugaes. After menudo, a comedian-clown, and fantastically sugary birthday cake, they turned up the music and all the adults began to dance. Young and old alike hopped out on the dance floor (the driveway) and started to salsa and sashay. The oldest guy, the patriarch of the family, is named Ephraim and I watched as he took his wife out on the dance floor and did a sort of salsafied box step with her, smiling and shy. Russ and I had to go soon after the dancing started, and before we went, Russ introduced me to Ephraim and his wife. He speaks no English at all, and neither does his wife, so there was a lot of hand gesturing, but somehow, we got the idea that he wanted us to dance. He wanted to see us. The others around him who heard him say this wanted us to dance, too, dance, dance, dance! they almost chanted. Immediately, my own little alarm bells went off. I'm not a great dancer and especially not with great dancers watching me. I shook my head and smiled, with that old thought that to do things, you have to do them correctly to avoid embarrassment.
And that's what was so great about the march yesterday. "Si se puede." Roughly translated, yes we can or yes it can be done. I marched and shouted and pronounced some of my Spanish words wrong, I bumped into people, I started conversations that I didn't know how to continue, and generally did a lot of things out of step. But for all the things I did wrong, I marched on and worried not about myself for once, but about something much larger.
Here are some of my favorite shots from yesterday. (I've posted all the shots from yesteday on my flickr account.) Enjoy.
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