this is how people treat me

…for the most part.

out of dodge

“I’m going to need you to stop the whole typing, in the morning thing.”

The cycle was; Nicole’s alarm clock would go off, she’d reluctantly reach to hit the ‘sleep’ button, and then fall immediately back to sleep.  It had repeated three times that Saturday morning.

Suddenly though, without the aid of her smoke-detector-like alarm’s tone pulsing through our cubicle of a dorm room, she managed to  buoyantly pop up to state the aforementioned request.  The subtext was more obvious than a Toronto Film Festival’s best-feature selection’s original script.  I turned in bodily retort.  The image I was confronted with made me physically ill.

Nicole’s cheaply chopped, color-perplexed hair struggled to stay in a stupid looking elastic, undoubtedly purchased at Wal-Mart –because well, everything was.  Her bundled bunch of dead ends reminded me of the old-fashioned lather brushes my  dad used to shave.  Lips pursed, artificially defiant, Nicole’s skin gleamed with a glut of zits, blemishes, and braised blood cells — a result of  her phobic nightly ritual scrubbing. Ostentatious physical observations were surely exaggerated in nothing less than a cartoon-like fashion.  They must have been.

I’d never seen her as particularly attractive, but her false-benevolence, unthreatening, and attainable looks were the kind that allowed most to grant her the adjective-noun combination “cute girl.”  I’m really trying to describe this chick without using the term, “girl next door.”  This morning, though, she was just slovenly.  Atop her lofted twin-sized bed in a dirty tank top and tattered sweatpants, every unsightly fat deposit danced at me from her stout, wide frame.  Accentuated by her belligerence, surely.  I’d never leverage looks over another woman.  I’m a feminist, and that’s girl-on-girl crime.  In that instance though, Nicole stood to embody every spiteful, average, or below average, covetous nag I’d ever encountered.  And she was them.  The jealous girlfriend of the ignoramuses who made juvenile passes at me in high school –in front of said girlfriends. Every girl, woman, and casting director who’d meticulously inspected my body, teeth, and face, to whisper about later.  But she was to be the last.  Or, at least the first… to hear about it.

I am not passive.  Not even stereotypically female (read. passive-aggressive).  Calling out catty girl shit always felt like kicking a dead horse.  It was tacit, to me, that anyone who would actively fixate on someone they didn’t wish to themselves bone, already felt threatened.   My existence threw the first punch.  Retaliation would put a game I didn’t want to play in the first place into overtime.  I chose to be mute as opposed to being their self-fulfilling prophecy.

A shrink would tell my one-category ‘turn the other cheek’ mentality started when I found out I was “mixed.”  Damn, it still feels punk to call myself mixed. My mother hates the term.  She used to say that everyone was mixed with something or another, rendering the term a flawed synonym for being bi-racial.

My mom hung out with west coast Black Panthers when she was in high school, which makes the fact that she ended up marrying a white guy fucking hilarious, but explains her hyper-vigilance in regards to securing my racial identity.  Her “I’m Black and I’m proud” nostalgia managed to ensure I didn’t develop some light-skinned superiority complex, like far too many “I’m actually mostly Cherokee Indian” bright-hued, black people.  I knew, and could explain that I was just “both” (Caucasian and Black), as I used to say.  But, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I was about as black as things got.  My hair didn’t lay down when it got wet, and the only relatives living in-state were my mom’s.  Things were pretty clear to me –even at four.

As it stands, the only derogatory remarks having to do with my ethnicity have always pertained to my perceived ”whiteness.”  In the drunkest of the whitest occasions amid the most tokenest, rented circumstances, I’ve never been called a “Nigger.”  Not to my face.  Not even “Nigga.”  But, a “Honkey?”  You betcha!

I distinctly remember asking my mother what on earth that word meant.  After she told me, I began watching The Jeffersons reruns religiously to see if I could re-witness the word’s inception.  That only happened twice, though.  Mostly it was a simple, “you act white!”  I took it because I felt like I had something to prove –not my blackness per se, so much as it was proving I wasn’t one of those uppity, “high-yellow” girls.  They were out there, and I knew them.  As far as I was concerned, on the mulatto spectrum (dark eyes to light eyes, course curls to soft ones, etc.) everything but my skin was as black as it gets.  I accepted the unprovoked animosity because I got where it came from.  I still do.  But that was all a long time ago.  The seed for what was to occur on the morning in question had only taken root weeks prior.

I’d returned to our dorm just after midnight on a Sunday to find Nicole already asleep.  Aberrant, in lieu of her usual routine; waltzing in at 3 am every night, consuming an entire pint of fat-free Haagan Daz, and a 10 oz bag of Snyder’s pretzel rods, whilst portentously flipping the pages of the latest Jane magazine (RIP).

A loose-leaf piece of paper torn from one of Nicole’s signature yellow legal pads was taped to my loft.  I assumed it was another one of her showy ‘thank you’ notes.  She often composed these out of some form of illogical guilt whenever I’d finish her laundry so she and her boyfriend could go on an impromptu bike ride –or, on accident, since her clothing lived, for the most part, on the floor, and magically made its way into my hamper on a regular basis.

The notes always read as if someone decided to actually pen out a Myspace comment, complete with overzealous compliments like, “you’re the most awsomest, most hottest chick ever!”  I knew this brand of false- kinship but mildly enjoyed the acknowledgment anyway.  This one read:

“I don’t want to be rude, but I’d prefer from now on that Alexander doesn’t use my chair when he comes in here.  It’s just that I usually have crap on it (and around it) and though it’s a mess, I’d rather not have it disturbed.  When I came in tonight it was still by your desk and my jacket was hanging from it on the ground.  Sorry, I’m not trying to be a bitch, I’d just rather he bring his chair down the hall or something.”

Just a modest request from someone who spent little to no time in our room but still managed to make the space look like a meth-lab.  For someone that didn’t have to worry about having a place for her friends to rest their asses, since the only people she knew were ones that could be traced back to her hometown –population 5000.  All townies were in close proximity.  For someone who, by choice, kept 60% of her wardrobe on the floor at all times, either in our room or the bathroom we shared with a large girl named Emily who had a chronic case of Easy-Mac-induced IBS, and her stocky, brain-dead volleyball-butch of a roommate, Steph.  For someone who didn’t own the fucking chair since like all of the other ugly furniture –it came with our room.  And finally, for someone that knew good and well how ridiculous (not to mention against our neurotic, Mormon, closet-case of an RA’s rules) the notion of  carrying a heavy wooden chair to another dorm to hang out, was.

My summer-before-college idealism of being all chummy and shit with the roommate had long gone.  I had Alex.  He was my gay husband, and when a girl has one of those, she’s set friend-wise.  I found him within the first few weeks of the fall semester and from then on was relieved of the pressure of feeling like the out-of-towner that had to be hyper-vigilant about branching out and making plans with people I already couldn’t stand.  Subsequent to those pre-Alex weeks, it became clear that Nicole was nothing more than a heady dilettante who predictably  sought for something beyond the mediocre she knew and ultimately was.  I’d leave conversations with her reciting Anthony Hopkin’s monologue from Silence of the Lambs, in my head. You know, the one in which he calls Jodie Foster’s character a “rube.”  That one.

Like Clarice, she too came from a small town.  Naturally, she wanted to move to  New York City.  Her family said out-of-state tuition at NYU was too expensive (in state ain’t much better –trust).  But that wasn’t the real reason.  Her father was a judge, which equated to po-dunk royalty in their town.  This indicated that Nicole’s family liked to play poor.  It wasn’t that they literally couldn’t afford to send her to the school of her choice, but rather, that the fiscally/morally responsible decision was to have their journalism/creative writing/photography/undecided/”I just want to be a dog-walker in New York –just anything to get me to New York City” major of a daughter, attend a less expensive institution, closer to home.

Nicole had a generic punk rock or alternative boyfriend.  I’m sure he wouldn’t describe himself with either adjectives because apparently that’s offensive.  Jim had crooked teeth, a lip ring, and dyed camel brown hair shaved into a Mohawk he never gelled up.  Invariably it slumped over on the right side of his head making him look like the popular sitcom alien Alf’s 2nd cousin, or something.  A photography major, he took formula pictures.  You know, work his look would point towards.  Black and white stills depicting mutilated and dismantled dolls in playgrounds, self-portraits mock-shooting up heroin.  All were shot from tritely obscure angles that knocked off knock-offs.  Nicole was infatuated.  They came from the same town, and went to the same high school.  Both were wannabe creative-types, and self-assumed progressive thinkers.  Too edgy to be edged in by the borders of Warrenton, Missouri.

Nicole’s days were scheduled around Jim for the most part.  A customary 3am arrival back to our room and snack binge at her desk, followed by a solid hour spent being tangential on the internet, blogging to her hearts content about inconsequential, non-unique observations.  She’d sleep for a few hours before her alarm clock went off for the first time, and then settle on whether or not she’d actually attend class that morning.  An over-estimated exercise routine would be worked into the equation to minimize the guilt that resulted from her eating habits, and implicit dissatisfaction with her body.

I’ve always hated it when girls verbalize their insecurities with me because they inevitably expect me to return the favor.  Tell me how much you hate yourself, and if I think it’s equal to or greater than the amount in which I hate myself, we can be friends.  I recoiled whenever she’d say something like, how she wanted a sunken in chest like bulimic girls.

Nicole’s bubbly veneer required an equally bogus supplement.  It was draining. One activity we seemed to be capable of carrying out successfully was being judgmental about the retards that lived on our floor.  The decipherer, though, was that my thoughts were public domain.  Literally.

After reading an essay posted on Facebook, written by some stocky dude that lived across the hall, that drew a comparison between the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panther Party, I impulsively wrote a corrective essay during my work-study period.  It wasn’t very difficult since he cited no evidence but rather just his opinion.  An editorial, if you will, on race relations in the United States from the perspective of a resident of rural Illinois who’d never seen the ocean. This was just after the “Note” application was added to the social networking site, when it was still a novelty to write one, and not just an opportunity to bust out “25 totally random things about yourself!”

Boris Lukeman looked like a fat little boy that retained the childlike, swollen-bellied body-type until all cute and endearing qualities were rendered null and void.  A self-proclaimed movie buff –so much of one, in fact, that he told everyone he met, it (film) was his major — it wasn’t.  Boris’ knowledge of film was limited to any and everything gratuitous.  Twisted, bloody, and kinky translated to profound, underrated and misunderstood. Regardless of his unfortunate girth and height combination he managed enough pretension to highlight, blow dry, and style his hair into the standard Myspace swoop-banged doo. Living across the hall from Boris got me privy to some pretty fucking mindless facts.  Clues into his social abilities, or lack there of, depending on how you choose to look at it.  Within the first conversation between him and any given person lucky enough to cross in front of his chronically open door, a certain selection of autobiographical bits were bound to find their way into the conversation.  For instance, the fact that his mother was 16 when she had him and either was, or was still (is currently?), a stripper.  This was to clarify how alt his entire life was.  He was again, edgy, and not just another lower-middle class suburban white kid.  He’d made it into a third tier college with a rough upbringing.  It totally worked with most people, too.

Perhaps my experiences have made me bias but since we now live in a world where journalists become strippers to sell books, middle-class white girls at NYU are ho’in’ and blogging about it, the general consensus among third wave feminists is “pro-sex worker”, and HBO is in its umptienth season of Cathouse –unless his mother was one of those bitches in that 2 Girls 1 Cup video, I could have given a fuck.  Then there were the high school stories.  Aren’t you supposed to wait at least a year before you can start telling those stories nostalgically?  There was the one about a classmate’s death –killed in a car accident.  Supposedly, the following day at school, someone ran through the hallway naked yelling something inaudible.  His English teacher exclaimed, “who was that?” and Boris said, “well it sure wasn’t [insert name of dead kid].”  Boris employed this often to convey just how dry, and satirical his sense of humor could be when he tried.  All the while, chuckling like a farm hand drunk with heat stroke.

Anyway, back to the panel on race relations.  His initial retort was juvenile, and altogether unserious.  Something along the lines of, “wait a minute, this isn’t a chain letter?”  The original dissertation included many of his convoluted notions on why black people should just calm down in general, and why Spike Lee should “STFU.”  My correction merely made reference to well-documented history, but facts weren’t edgy.

Boris’ roommate was James Bittle.  James was a redneck who attempted to squeeze his overweight torso into a metaphorical turtleneck via black rimmed glasses that made an effort at mod, but were so visibly a product of LensCrafters.  His thick white socks, rolled up onto his chunky pale, dirt-stained legs overpowered all potential effect of the knock-off glasses.  He worked around campus doing odd jobs; repairs, landscaping, and things of the like.  Once, while helping me carry a box upstairs, he explained rather proudly how he used to work at UPS, so helping me carry a few boxes of crap, was like, no big.  Between that, and his mocking tone towards anything remotely academic, he gave me the impression that he could have circumvented attending University altogether.  He had clearly settled in his destiny.

I decided I didn’t like James after he expressed to me that he felt Caucasians should have an alternative to BET.  If we were ever going to achieve true post-racialism, that is.  I never defend BET.  Mostly because it is embarrassing and uninteresting, but in theory I don’t think it is a bad idea.  James wasn’t exactly the nuanced type, so I saved my energy and curtly responded; “TV is W-E-T!”  At that point James wrote me off as an angry black girl (touché !) and ended the exchange with the lovely non-sequitur: “I just disagree.”

As explained, by this point Nicole and I weren’t friends, but we were speaking and interacting like normal, mentally healthy individuals that live in a shoe-box-sized room together.  Overzealous surface chit-chat and such.  But this… memorandum?  It was barefaced.  Nicole was making a petty demand on a whim.

Her life was kind of a mess.  Jim was growing less interested in her manic pixie retarded ho bit by the hour.  Her scholastic abilities that used to yield her spotty writing -brilliant, at Middle of Nowhere High, weren’t allowing her to pull the usual meaningless A grades her parents were looking for.  Half way through her first semester of college she found herself with no actual friends, due to her complete neglect of the people she felt compelled to feign relationships with.  Life for the tortured speck was atrocious.  In shambles really.  But she didn’t have solutions to any of those things.  She wasn’t supposed to feel this way because her life was to be a perpetual Regina Spektor music video.  Her loneliness, and boredom, and bitterness, and jealousy (the boyfriend asked to photograph me, and made her work the bounce boards) all must have been in regards to one of the shitty mass-produced chairs that came in the dorm being scooted less than 3 feet away.

I’m prone to confrontation, but initially resolved it was all too fucking dumb to validate.  So, in attempt to stifle my snark, besides letting every one of my guests from that point on know the importance of not moving or grazing  her chair, I said nothing to her about it.  At all.

Once at a New Years Eve party, one of the dance boys I knew from my performing arts magnet, leaned into my ear – inebriated, breathy he said there were two things in life he couldn’t stand; intolerance and being ignored.  He said, “be rude, be blunt, be curt, but don’t pretend I’m not there.”   I didn’t know if he’d arranged those words in a momentary epiphany, or if in his belligerence hastened on a quote from whichever author was hot at the time.  The sentiment held true in the rising debacle I found myself in.  I took genuine pride in my silence.  It was my high road.  My high road did not account for a textbook co-dependant personality.  Nicole evaluated the words I wasn’t saying.  The extent of our relationship hadn’t changed juristically.  We were just roommates.  We obviously didn’t like eachother, and now that it was out in the open, the way I saw it,  it was kind of a relief.  No more chit-chat, or fake-smiling, or feigning interest in any arbitrary facets of one another’s lives.  This wasn’t hard for me.  I’d lived in overcrowded, uncomfortable living situations for the greater portion of my life.  16 years in close quarters with a bi-polar manic depressive drummer –I already had a  B.A. in Disregard.  Nicole couldn’t stand it.  She began to bate me like a neglected child, which would eventually work.

Concluding what some would call an uneventful Friday evening spent trying to decide what to do and ultimately, deciding after midnight that no activity that would verbalize nicely in response to the inevitable “what did you do this weekend?” would have made us laugh as much as just clowning, and despite the usual feeling -regretting my decision to enroll at that shitty unheard of school in the middle of nowhere, I was in a good mood.  The hall was buzzing with obnoxious high-school storytelling inside doorways.

“Your phone keeps ringing – I think it’s your mom, and I’m about to go to bed so can you keep it down please?”

Alex and I looked at Nicole only long enough to establish the voice was indeed coming from her.  Alex quickly jolted his head in a turn to observe my reaction before it subsided.  I said absolutely nothing.  I looked Nicole dead in the face, got up, pushed past her through the doorway, grabbed my phone, and left the room again to return to mine and Alex’s refugee camp in the hallway.

I rarely cry in sadness.  In truth, 9 times out of 10 if you catch me in tears it’s because I’m so frustrated or pissed off and I can’t do anything about it –panic attack-steez.  Sort of like when Hanna from The Bad Girl’s Club was crying and shaking because she wanted to whoop a bitch’s ass but she knew that if she did, she’d have to leave her temporarily-rent-free/open bar existence.

As I squatted back down onto the carpet with Alex I began to get that nervous rush of agitation in my throat – unspoken words.

Upon returning to my room: Nicole lay serenely at rest while our suite-mates (the tranny and the fatty), on the other side of Nicole’s wall continued to mix boisterously for several hours.  She didn’t so much as flinch in response to their actual noise.  There in the stillness, with Nicole’s permanently strewn belongings enveloping the area, an untouched bicycle sedentary in the middle of the space, and soiled clothing literally covering every tile in the bathroom… I lost my fucking shit!  I followed in suit with what Nicole seemed to be comfortable with.

I wrote down everything.

At 2 am I managed to be about as cutting as the cerebral, freshly caffeinated 10:30 am me (albeit with even more typos).

I returned from a late brunch and errands the next day to the room, and Nicole was… cleaning.  She’d read my letter.  I hadn’t cultivated a fictitious battle of naught, but I’d committed an act far more agregious for those of the spurious existence; I told the truth.

Briefly, I had feelings of guilt.  Nicole had obviously worked hard at perfecting the facade that garbed her insides.  On top of the distress resulting from being revealed, I think Nicole envied me at least as much as she hated me.  I was loud, unapologetic, I knew that New York and New Jersey were two separate states, and my writing –unpolished, at the very least reflected experiences-lived rather than (the) experiences of Chuck Palahniuk.

She wrote me another note.

Disregarding my formal invitation -in the letter- to discuss the first letter in-person, Nicole, only after having an after-school-special sit down with the RA, decided that she would write a second letter suggesting a face-to-face dialogue.  Clearly, she wasn’t interested in initiating this into action.  Likewise, by now I was disinterested in any sort of formal meeting between the two of us.  I could have truly given a fuck about making peace over musical chairs.  Stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours.  Before I’d know it -it’d be over.  Womp-womp –situation diffused.  It was all pretty dumb.  Our room looked better than it ever had, and I’d assumed I’d defended myself enough as to have taken care of future fuckings with me.

The disparity between what it means to be unpleasant, and to be unbearable is evident in each word’s alliteration.  Prior to Nicole’s recent antics, her inconsiderate tendencies were unpleasant.  Post-dictatorship, I felt, and noted every misnomer.  Cutting, telling, looks were shot whenever Nicole would schmooze neighbors neither one of us could stand, late on weeknights in our room.  Months proir it was the both of us trying to get the skater dead head art student out of our room so we could go to bed.  Now, either out of boredom or lack of things to do with Jim, or both, she welcomed them.  She was fucking, fucking with me!  All basic courteous regard once taken by Nicole was nonchalantly discontinued as if it had never been considered to begin with.

I’d mocked Nicole in my writing of the response-note, and felt no need to carry on any further with communique that danced around direct language.  After I’d squinted my eyes shut as to convince myself my environment was dark for the uptienth night in a row, and only after Nicole had completed whatever trivial assignment she’d put off starting until 1 am did I say to her; “It’s 2am.  I have class every morning, and you’re going to need to use the study room down the hall when you plan on working this late.”

For the first time I saw Nicole.  “Okay!”  She spat back at me with her best attempt at sarcasm.  She was visibly upset, and it was clear she had no experience emoting in this genre.  Her face crumpled, and her eyelids drooped from too many stretches from too many drugstore eye-liner applications.  It was obvious that someone had given her a pep talk.   Someone said  “don’t let that black girl scare you.”  This courage wasn’t noble or strong, but rather the sort of blind, adrenaline-fueled determination that allows soldiers to kill strangers in foreign lands.

Persisting in my hush, I reluctantly got up on the Saturday in question, care of Nicole’s alarm, naturally.  Before I’d planned, but fuck it -whatever.  I decided to make an effort at rousing myself by going online.  James posted a response to my rebuttal:

I sympathize with you. I agree that black people have to go through a lot more crap than white people, and that should never be. But I fail to actually feel sorry for you in particular because you think the solution to that is hatred in return. You want things to change? Be the bigger person. If you’re not going to be, then stop complaining, because you’re part of the problem.  And as for what black people can do that white people can’t? I think it’s pretty clear, you said it yourself: they can be rascist. ‘Nuff said..

Aside from the obvious spelling and grammar errors, which were enough to sicken me that early in the morning, his patronizing ignorance and incoherent assumptions were enough to make all of the muscles in my face become paralyzed in distaste.  Boris also posted another rejoinder, but this time his work of fiction was re-writing a far more recent history.  Nicole had sought refuge with the boys she’d most frequently described as “fat” and “dumb.”  She felt compelled to inform them of all of the terrible things I’d done.  Boris outlined my allowing my friends (def. people I enjoyed spending time with, and not people I felt obligated to spend time with) to sit in the desk chair that came with Nicole’s side of the room.  It read similar to an accusation of rape and mutilation, referring to me as “angry.”  Duh, you fat retard.

This was requisite to my refusal to perkily force a grin with every pass in the hallway.  OK.  He also accused me of using a Thesaurus to write the response I pecked out after too many Americanos on the Media Center’s old Macintosh.  Hi, Hater.  I often wondered if those who spited me would have been more likely to accept me had I been utterly inept.

As if the three had plotted the night before, directly following my scanning of Boris’ slanderous sap he felt had helped emancipate the acne-ridden damsel, said princess sprung up to make the primarily stated, yet final demand.

As the fourteen silly words strung so sloppily together finally exited into the atmosphere, amid a displeasure that came with recognizing what was to come, were the liberating lyrics of Marlena Shaw’s “At Last” sifting through my brainwaves.  Vindictive, instigating, and hideous –I made that girl real.

My voice was restored.  “Nicole.  Actually, it’s 11 am on a Saturday, and your own alarm clock has gone off 3 times already which is why I’m awake right now, therefore I won’t quit typing.  And save the attitude for your parents.”

Beaming green as to how inexperienced she was with conflict, Nicole began exacerbating every resource she thought herself to have.  She told me about how no one on the floor liked me (except for Alex, you dumb cunt –obvs).  This ones my favorite –she told me that with my attitude, I wouldn’t go far in life.  Last I heard she was taking community college classes in St. Louis, MO.  Also, there was the quite tired one that I can’t seem to escape… That I’m a “bitch.”  We’ve got to do better with coming up with some synonyms that  can compete with “bitch.”  Really.

She also made sure to tell me my writing was racist towards white people, and that I couldn’t have been that smart if I’d had to come to that godawful school.  A regular Glen-Becca.

Like a person first attempts to fan away a fly before they start swatting to kill it, I would interject preventatively in between each of her immaterial comments.  Then, after watching her get all Town Hall Meeting for several minutes, I got into what I like to call the “You ain’t lynching my ass today” mode.  I got up.

Before I could make sense of how I’d been relocated, I found myself standing at the foot of Nicole’s loft, and told her things that I think Nicole never wished to know about herself.

She was a nonspecific aspirant who’s attempts at being distinctive only left her appearing more tragically run of the mill.  She had no significant experiences rendering her unable to write anything evocative.  Her antipathy for her parents was nothing more than futile adolescent angst.  She proved successful at nothing more than being indecisive, and lackluster, which translated into the current condition of her hair… and then I cussed her ass out.

With the looming threat of every female who’d ever harbored ill will towards me for things I did not control, I pleaded out loud that I would not have  to “lay hands” on her.   Once these words left my body, I began to worry.  I’d picked up the term “lay hands on” from my mom.  Staying would only further muddle the waters of clarity.  I dialed my mom so she could remind me why I shouldn’t clock the Betsy upside the head ’till the white meat show, and left.

Nicole produced tears for the RA, and I began to recollect remnants of To Kill A Mockingbird. Mom, 2,500 miles away was intrinsically one step ahead.  Too many times in her life had she seen the tears of a white girl paint elaborate tales.

Public Safety sent up the black RA –Barry.  The school’s premiere token featured on practically every pamphlet.  He must have led at least 10 snake-oil saturated campus tours a day.  He told me that Mrs. Conrade was making this a “race thing.”  I sat in this nigga’s dirty dorm room, subjugated, livid –tears trolling down my now, puffy face.  Tragic-Mulatto-steez.  Barry’s breath stunk and I really hated that he thought I was being vulnerable when in reality I was seething.  I walked a sexless walk of shame back through the dorm halls to my room, paranoid with the evidence of weakness smeared across my face.

Minutes after allocating to my desk, desperately waiting for Alex to return from church, and waiting for my mother to get off of the phone with the Dean Of Students, the NAACP, the ACLU, and anyone else she thought to contact, Nicole entered with her mother, who’d driven down.  Donning her tear-struck face smugly, she and her mother sat on her side of the room and had small talk as if neither of them knew why she’d driven the hour there in the first place.  They’d been eavesdropping on my phone conversations outside of the door prior to their entrance.  This is where Nicole got it.    At that juncture, I saw their lineage: docile, and aggrieved for it.   I stared hard into my computer screen as I began to transcribe the letter that would eventually have Ms. Nicole [Redacted] removed from the room.

As my body began to wane from artificial cafeteria food and the events of the day, I sunk deep into my defeated laze.  Like a Raggedy Ann Doll.  Alex flipped channels for inertia’s sake.  A Gunsmoke marathon was on Nick at Night.  We both just wanted to go to bed but couldn’t bring ourselves to move or at least offer the other the courtesy, “we should go to bed.”

That night in the heart of middle America, two painfully average black teenagers sat through 3 episodes of Gunsmoke before getting to hear that signature line that proved so pertinent to my predicament, and laughing uncontrollably until the line was through ; “You’d better get the hell out of Dodge!”

socially imbalanced

the newest viral exploitation of former-actress Maia Campbell has crossed over from the black blogosphere to the Gawker-owned Defamer.  i’m not posting it for several reasons. the first reason being, i had a stronger more visceral reaction to it than i’d have predicted.  also, it’s really easy to find, embedding shit from WSHH is against my religion, and the Youtube version is out-of-synch.

Maia’s mother, the late, renowned author Bebe Moore Campbell wrote a book called 72-Hour Hold i first heard about from my mom when i was in high school.  at the time, my mom’s best friend since kindergarden was considering placing a 72-hour hold on her daughter who was charging $50-$100 every day to her credit card for food to binge and purge with.  

i’ve only watched interviews, read excerpts and reviews of the book, so i’ll hold off on a further review of its contents until after amazon puts my copy in the mail.  

it touches on a few subjects that i can relate to.  one being, the shame of having a mentally ill loved-one, and another being the taboo nature of psychotherapy and mental illness, specifically within the African American community.

those of you that pray –you know (put Maia on ya’ll’s prayer cards and whatnot).  why; she’s a bi-polar, possibly schizophrenic, meth-addicted, crack-addicted, weed-addicted(?), Lay’s Potato Chip-addicted, prostitute, and low-budget porn star.  also, be on the look out for a heavy anti-anti-horny nigga sentiment.

girl, i feel you

i’m so bloated i could cry.  -spent half the day time-coding footage of interviews featuring the only people on the planet more neurotic, and chatty than me; New York Jews.  i’m hungry and can’t bring myself to eat because i’m sick of everything available in my neighborhood, i’m semi-broke, the bloating (obvs), and i just don’t have it in me to get it together.  typing this is really hard.  fuck it, i just want to drink juice and watch Tiny & Toya.

i’m not trying to be a jerk

but, are we allowed to talk about Jermaine Jackson’s hair line/painted hair – fusion widows peak, permed crew cut, candidly, and honestly?

i need some weed

and i still have acid reflux, and hate my life.

i think i have acid reflux disease

so i’ve been drinking this shit non-stop because my mom said it would help.  certainly not proper medicine but i don’t have health insurance so it’ll have to do.

herr cerr

this is going to be the post where i talk about black hair.  specifically my “black hair,” and the social ramifications that come with it.

the other day, i was most likely smoking in my bed because that’s when my mind tends to wonder into the 4th grade wasteland (in my head) full of pointless shit i usually don’t allow myself to lend brain cells to.  anyway, i wondered if my life would have been different if i’d never felt compelled to engage in what stands to be my life-long tug of war with the texture of my tresses.  that is to say, if my hair didn’t go all lioness-mulatto when it came in contact with any sort of perspiration or liquid….

also, is barber-homeboy wearing Fendi-print boxers?  just questions –hay!  we’re just talkin’…

i’m related to this

by blood.

what the fuck am i supposed to do?

when bitches are looking like this in their 40’s?

i’m just really hoping the caucasian half of me doesn’t overshadow the whole “black don’t crack” theory.