MOMMY('S) ISSUES

Many years ago, a student of mine friended me on FaceBook.  I don't get a lot of friendship requests from ex-students and this one was particularly weird because we didn't exactly vibe.  But I accepted it for some reason.  He's kinda this schlubby pasty suburban dude, and over the years I get glimpses of him and his schlubby pasty suburban wife and their four or five or seven kids.  Anyway, they recently went on a trip to St. Louis and visited the City Museum, which I have been to and love.  I clicked on the photos that his wife posted and she said something about her sons being 15 and 16 year old boys *giggle.*  Ok, fine.  Whatever.  

Since the City Museum is an artist space, there are all kinds of statues.  In five or six of the images there's a statue of a woman with a naked torso.  Most of the statues are very stylized and lacking detail, but anyone can tell they were intend to capture the female form.  Well, in all of the pictures with nude lady statues, these teenage boys are like pointing at, poking, holding, and even licking the statue tits.  And you know what?  Had these pictures been captured by 15 and 16 year old boys, you know, like their peers, I would have said, "okay, that tracks."  But it wasn't. These pictures were clearly taken by and posted by their mother.  It's almost as though she's...proud that her sons are going to grow up to be public transit masterbaters.  

Isn't that funny?  I simply cannot stop laughing to myself when I think of it.  This nation is so weird.  

UPDATE: The 15 year old just tunred 16 and the mother posted a picture of him in a tee shirt that reads, I *heart* hot moms.

I NEED TO OVERWRITE MY PROGRAMMING

I just finished reading "What My Bones Know" by Stephanie Foo. 

Nearly all the memoirs I have ever read are ones that people actively put in my hands.  If people didn't insist I read them, I never would.  While I prefer non-fiction, I don't really actively seek out memoirs.  Too many of them come across as terribly self-absorbed and not relatable.  My friend gave me "Crying in H Mart" and raved about the catharsis she felt, but I did not get that at all.  On the contrary, I had a hard time connecting with with the author and actually found her annoying.  Sorry!  Also, my mother-in-law gifted me "Lots of Candles and Plenty of Cake" and after I read it I thought, this will be useful someday when I morph into an old, white, wealthy matron.  Actually, the only memoir I read and liked was "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" by Sherman Alexie.

Anyway, in her book Foo talks about the abjectly horrible physical and emotional abuse she endured as a child and her pathway to...well, whatever.  What are any of us working towards?  Feeling less broken and hopeless??  While I never recieved hour-long beatings from my parents, while they never threw me down the stairs or dragged me around by my hair or tried to strike me in the head with golf club, they definitely hit me, slapped me, threatened me with physical violence, and most memorable, said things that made me feel worthless.  I was such a disappointment to them.  Similar to Stephanie's experience, some of their expectations felt tied to Asian culture (the author actually explores this and brings it back to, THANK YOU, colonialism.)  Also similar to Stephanie, it was my mom who was more cruel and unpredictable, while my dad, although capable of cruelness, never protected me from her enmeshing herself with me in her co-dependent ways.  As young as six, I parented my mother, I comforted her and tried to make her feel the love she never received as a kid.  Love from them always felt conditional. 

Now I'm a grown woman, and to this day I have a recurring dream that I am loved unconditionally.  I would wake up feeling like I won the lottery.  Really, I can't describe it other than to say it's the best feeling ever.  It has to be up there with heroin.  I know it sounds cheesy, but I have come to realize I need to swoop in and love myself unconditionally.  Nobody else is going to do it for me.  If I do not learn how to do that, nothing is going to change.                  

OLD PEOPLES' OLD FRIENDS

I have this friend who started off as an assistant librarian at the college where I teach/taught.  Many years ago she accepted a position at a real university that offered her things like a livable wage, sabaticals, and self-respect.  I have not seen her in maybe 6 years, although we text from time to time.  She came back to this city for a visit this spring, and a few weeks ago, we shared beers/laughs.

She has a very wry sense of humor.  She doesn't fit any of the stereotypes about librarians, those being wholesome goody two-shoes or nasty control freaks (think shushing).  I don't know where those ideas originated because all the librarians I know are kind of cynical and sarcastic as fuck.  She'a also a few years older than me.

So, she's asking how I have been and I'm telling her that I have changed a lot because of my age.  I said, well now that I'm in my fourties, I feel like I'm horny all the time and I have a lot of crushes on men.  She seriously put her hand up to stop the words coming out of my mouth.  She wore a boared expression.  "I've known you for a while Wren and you've always been like this.  You're always horny and you're always crushing on men."  

I thought about it for a moment and of course she was right.  You gotta love those friends that shut down the bullshit straight away.

BALANCE

I'm not white.  Not totally.  But my hometown was quite white.  People would look at me when I was a kid and ask, "are you Indian?"  Or "what are you?"  I got that a lot.  Just completely out of context.  You might think I grew up with a bunch of rubes.  Many of them were.  Many still are.  

Anyway, now that I'm an adult, I have grown into my non-whiteness.  I no longer see it as a liability.  I don't know if that comes with age and not caring or if it comes with the realization that some people will fetishize me because of my mixed race.  Whatever.  

What I want to say is, I grew up feeling like a weirdo because people treated me like a weirdo.  It's the only way I know how to be.  But now that my face no longer feels weird enough to me anymore, I find myself unconsciously but actively working to make myself look weird.  I wear big, goofy glasses and yesterday when I was getting my hair cut, I asked the hairdresser to give me a "cross between a mullet and a grown out, shaggy mohawk."  

He executed this request perfectly.  Now I feel comfortable, like my true self.  I'm not trying to get myself noticed or stand out.  I'm just trying to satisfy an internal balance, one that only I can see.        

  

DREAM TWENTY-EIGHT

I'm in the home of my division head, only it's not his home. I'm humming I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day by the Pogues and walking around an open concept 1970s furnished kitchen.  Next, we go somewhere to film something work related with a professor in our department.  Right now, all I can remember from this trip is seeing one of those orange traffic cones half-buried under a lump of sod.

After this, we go to a restaurant that is open, spacious, dimly lit.  All of these adult types are gathering around a long high-top table, seating themselves.  There is a chair between the division head and the other professor with pretty light blue upholstery.  It is the only chair available.  I make my way to it and start to sit down when he turns to me and says, "no, this event is only for the board members."  It reminded me of the time I was getting up for communion at my grandfather's funeral and my grandmother put a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder like a teacher controlling a child prone to outburst and mouthed, "not you."  It kind of stung, you know?  

Still I step back from the table to the far wall and when I do, I notice there is some theater going on at the table I just backed away from.  This must be some kind of entertainment that the restaurant provides.  It looks like the most dramatic moments of a Greek tragedy are being acted out, only the actors are dressed up as animals.  There's violence and gallons of stage blood spilled at one end of the table.  Was it a rat king?  Was he just eviscerated?  In any case, before the dream ends, I remember feeling relieved to have been excluded.

(Please brain, tell me how you feel about academia.)

DREAM TWENTY-SEVEN

I landed a job as a journalist.  The editor told me each paragraph I write needs to contain no fewer than two million words.  (IRL there's something I need to edit and I'm completely dragging my feet about it.)