I graduated in December. I moved back home. I got a job. Four days a week 24/7 I live in a boys' house in Detroit. A scholarship, residential program. Everything is very different from a year ago when I was updating this blog semi-regularly.
However, the themes are the same, and my life, on the inside, is still the same. My grandpa is very sick. My dad doesn't have a job. My mom is so worried that she get headaches from the stress; she can't seem to function without thinking of her worries. It makes me sick. But I am lucky. The boys that I work with are here because of "environmental factors". Maybe one of their parents died, left, or doesn't have enough money to take care of them. Maybe their neighborhoods aren't the best. The program believes that to be successful, they should live in a program I help run. Haha. Me? I can't even help my own family!
It is funny. I am not nearly as sensitive to the boys' criticism as I thought I would be. It hurts when you can hear teenagers whispering about you through closed doors. But I don't mind. My siblings and I fight all the time. Its not really that different.
Nothing is that different. Still, I'm worried.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Luck
I'm thinking there needs to be a new class at the University of Michigan. This class will be called Luck 340: the way the world works.
I'm very tired of learning about how society is structured to oppress people, or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, how we need to Get A Good Job so that we can Make Lots of $$ and Have A Good Life. I have an intense need right now to duct tape everyone's mouths, tie their hands behind their backs, throw 'em in my jimmy, and take 'em to my family. There, I'd show them the truth.
Look, here's my grandparents. Society was not structured to oppress them. They are white. They are middle/working class. They are Americans. And yet, two sons dead. My grandma suffered a heart attack, breast/skin cancer, and a stroke, because of their deaths. My grandpa was just diagnosed with ALS.
Then I'd tie these twerps back up and take 'em to my parents' house.
Look, here's my dad. He was poor, but he Got A Good Job, Made Lots of $$, and Has A Good Life. His son has cystic fibrosis. Money can not cure cystic fibrosis. Nothing can cure cystic fibrosis.
Luck.
There would be a second course. It would be called Luck 490: livin' and likin' it. It wouldn't be that hard. I wouldn't tie people up and haul them places, we'd just laugh and drink some rum and coke. We'd garden with my grandparents and build furniture with my dad. We'd go on long walks with my mom and push ourselves farther than we needed to go. And we'd take a lot of advice from my boyfriend, and skip a lot of these classes to take a much-needed rest, or drive around town with the windows rolled down.
And if we got a ticket, we'd just blame it on luck.
I'm very tired of learning about how society is structured to oppress people, or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, how we need to Get A Good Job so that we can Make Lots of $$ and Have A Good Life. I have an intense need right now to duct tape everyone's mouths, tie their hands behind their backs, throw 'em in my jimmy, and take 'em to my family. There, I'd show them the truth.
Look, here's my grandparents. Society was not structured to oppress them. They are white. They are middle/working class. They are Americans. And yet, two sons dead. My grandma suffered a heart attack, breast/skin cancer, and a stroke, because of their deaths. My grandpa was just diagnosed with ALS.
Then I'd tie these twerps back up and take 'em to my parents' house.
Look, here's my dad. He was poor, but he Got A Good Job, Made Lots of $$, and Has A Good Life. His son has cystic fibrosis. Money can not cure cystic fibrosis. Nothing can cure cystic fibrosis.
Luck.
There would be a second course. It would be called Luck 490: livin' and likin' it. It wouldn't be that hard. I wouldn't tie people up and haul them places, we'd just laugh and drink some rum and coke. We'd garden with my grandparents and build furniture with my dad. We'd go on long walks with my mom and push ourselves farther than we needed to go. And we'd take a lot of advice from my boyfriend, and skip a lot of these classes to take a much-needed rest, or drive around town with the windows rolled down.
And if we got a ticket, we'd just blame it on luck.
Monday, March 30, 2009
This, as usual, probably only applies to me
The quiet moment when light hits his face and you can turn into yourself, form yourself through that light and suddenly your laughing, in a room, at a party, and you understand the power in your head thrown back, laughing, not only because you look so childlike and sweet, but because you have spoken, and others are speaking with you. That is all there is to life. There has to be a connection between all these thoughts. I can’t just move on without a garden, a poem, or a well-intentioned smile. I don’t know what drives other people, but I had momentarily forgot this about myself.
But you can drive anywhere and you can follow directions and end up in places you’ve never been before and there is a success to that. And that is beautiful. But there are so many ties to that one thing, and you can never be happy if you are proud simply to move through the road. You have to put bounds to your thoughts and you have to see the world through beams of light because that is what is beautiful and you want to acknowledge that. You want life to have power, to have meaning, and without that inspiration, you feel like you are driving yourself into a wall of nothing. Grandparents dying. Friends leaving. No promise of any future. But when you pass a cornfield on your drive, and suddenly the morning shifts and it is no longer damp blue, but the orange glow of new morning, you know that everything is settling into place...the dust in the ground beneath the corn, your face peering into the future of the longer road. It is important, I think.
But you can drive anywhere and you can follow directions and end up in places you’ve never been before and there is a success to that. And that is beautiful. But there are so many ties to that one thing, and you can never be happy if you are proud simply to move through the road. You have to put bounds to your thoughts and you have to see the world through beams of light because that is what is beautiful and you want to acknowledge that. You want life to have power, to have meaning, and without that inspiration, you feel like you are driving yourself into a wall of nothing. Grandparents dying. Friends leaving. No promise of any future. But when you pass a cornfield on your drive, and suddenly the morning shifts and it is no longer damp blue, but the orange glow of new morning, you know that everything is settling into place...the dust in the ground beneath the corn, your face peering into the future of the longer road. It is important, I think.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Social Capital
At the moment I am supposed to be reading about whether or not social historians should include social capital in their eternal analyzing of history or if they should just simply wait for the fad to pass. I haven't gotten to the answer yet, and all I can think about is the new cash register at work.
Its very strange. I've dreamt about this cash register repeatedly. First, I dreamt that we were getting a new one, before I even knew that it was coming. Then, as I was gone for spring break, and they were installing the new cash register, I constantly had dreams that I messed up on it, that everything was amiss because the buttons were in the wrong place.
And they are. They are also ON THE SCREEN! You have to "sign in" to the cash register by a finger scan. Its crazy. I doubt many people want to steal Mia Za's money, but for some reason the register will not let me operate it unless I give it the finger. Because, of course, every time I used my pointer finger it replied with "access denied". Apparently, my pointer fingerprint is unreadable. Though, I'm secretly glad I get to flip it off every time I sign in to work.
But its bizarre. Social capital relates to the assets we have by joining social organizations, the types of advantages we get by being associated with different groups. Everyone was depressed today at work, when I tried to smile at them, the corners of their lips lifted in a droopy, halfhearted way. I was sad too. And it was sunny and warm out! It was beautiful, one of the most clear days we've had all winter.
I think our time is up. As a group, we've run out of energy. Our jokes are turning into complaints; our suggestions for each other are wearing at our shoulders and grinding against our skulls. Its too much. There have been too many changes and the benefits we used to enjoy are dwindling fast.
Its very strange. I've dreamt about this cash register repeatedly. First, I dreamt that we were getting a new one, before I even knew that it was coming. Then, as I was gone for spring break, and they were installing the new cash register, I constantly had dreams that I messed up on it, that everything was amiss because the buttons were in the wrong place.
And they are. They are also ON THE SCREEN! You have to "sign in" to the cash register by a finger scan. Its crazy. I doubt many people want to steal Mia Za's money, but for some reason the register will not let me operate it unless I give it the finger. Because, of course, every time I used my pointer finger it replied with "access denied". Apparently, my pointer fingerprint is unreadable. Though, I'm secretly glad I get to flip it off every time I sign in to work.
But its bizarre. Social capital relates to the assets we have by joining social organizations, the types of advantages we get by being associated with different groups. Everyone was depressed today at work, when I tried to smile at them, the corners of their lips lifted in a droopy, halfhearted way. I was sad too. And it was sunny and warm out! It was beautiful, one of the most clear days we've had all winter.
I think our time is up. As a group, we've run out of energy. Our jokes are turning into complaints; our suggestions for each other are wearing at our shoulders and grinding against our skulls. Its too much. There have been too many changes and the benefits we used to enjoy are dwindling fast.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Please Excuse My Last Post
It comes off as a tiny bit snobbish. What I mean to say, simply, is that I am finally closer to "getting it", the way my mom has been my entire life. I am glad.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Same Thoughts I'm Usually Thinking
Its very comforting, this silence. I don’t know what I am trying to prove. In becoming my mother, I have pretty much destroyed all shreds of intelligence I have left. And its not like she isn’t smart. Because of course! of course! I know she knows things--she can feel a person’s true intentions from a mile away--but it is the grammar behind the thing that has really got me.
And the problem is that I always prided myself on my grammar and my four hundred dollar words and I can see the sparks of this literarymind fly off of my mom’s blond head and so I guess mine, though its brown and not nearly as joyous, is also sparking off big words and the correct grammar on days when the hatchet decides to strike. Not usually. Usually I can feel my cold feet sunk in the colder mud and I’m saying words I know don’t exist. But I like ‘em. I like the way they feel against my tongue and through my teeth chattering--because its cold, y’know? And I have to say something. Might as well say what’s easiest.
Its strange, though. I can feel the division. Some people know me as this girl I guess we all used to be. (Me, my mother, my grandmother.) Correct spelling, the brain churning in all the right spots. My siblings always made fun of me for reading too much. Now the new people see me in a different light and it doesn’t match up, parts of me are shining through two different stained glass windows. I don’t know.
I feel more honest now.
And the problem is that I always prided myself on my grammar and my four hundred dollar words and I can see the sparks of this literarymind fly off of my mom’s blond head and so I guess mine, though its brown and not nearly as joyous, is also sparking off big words and the correct grammar on days when the hatchet decides to strike. Not usually. Usually I can feel my cold feet sunk in the colder mud and I’m saying words I know don’t exist. But I like ‘em. I like the way they feel against my tongue and through my teeth chattering--because its cold, y’know? And I have to say something. Might as well say what’s easiest.
Its strange, though. I can feel the division. Some people know me as this girl I guess we all used to be. (Me, my mother, my grandmother.) Correct spelling, the brain churning in all the right spots. My siblings always made fun of me for reading too much. Now the new people see me in a different light and it doesn’t match up, parts of me are shining through two different stained glass windows. I don’t know.
I feel more honest now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
