Filed under: life stories
model- a person or thing regarded as an excellent example of a specified quality.
She is typical. Her teeth flash a blinding white, her straight, shiny hairs lies down her sun-kissed back. Her dark, black sunglasses rest on her face. Her ribs jut out, her hip bones seem to be inching out of her skin. She stands in her bathing suit sipping a sugar-free redbull in her left hand and holding a cigarette in her right. She is beautiful.
He is old and wears large framed glasses. His beer belly bulges out of his sweat stained shirt. He holds an expensive camera in his hands and talks to her about where to shoot the next hundred frames.
To her those next hundred frames could led to her life in the Hollywood Hills. These pictures could make her famous. She could live in a glamorous mansions and throw parties and buy expensive rings and necklaces. She could take care of herself and be happy.
To him she is something to look at, something to capture. She is a muse for his art and she is something to look at. She will captivate little boys imaginations and hormones. She is captivating his hormones right now and he thinks later he will stare at all one hundred frames and pull on his dick, masturbating to his art.
Two twelve year old girls see her-the beauty-and the old man-the photographer. Now they want to play, readily clad in bathing suits that used to be for playing in the fountain transform into show pieces for their bodies. Now they are creating their own photo shoot. The girl in the two piece is the model, of course. She replicates every movement of her older, skinnier teacher. She pushes her breasts out and sucks her chubby stomach in. She has a beautiful face. And the girl in the black-polka dotted one piece snaps the camera. She catches time. When they go home tonight both girls will stand naked in front of the floor length mirror and begin to hate themselves for not having shiny hair and white teeth.
Filed under: life stories
Dear Teacher,
I am writing, not out of spite or in an attempt to break your ego–although of which I believe could be for the better). Instead, I am writing this for all of the girls you will teach after me. You may have studied “feminism” but do not so quickly stamp a word on something that you, a male, will never understand. In your class, I, a female, was quiet in discussion. I was quiet and uncertain and doubtful and too insecure to speak up. You along with the other males in the class were loud, certain, and full of confidence. It is evident females lack a certain overbearing ill-famed confidence and purpose that most males elude. So, when in your class you spoke of feminism and females- you along with the other males seemed to so quickly jump at the idea. You get it- females are suppressed. But you don’t, you don’t see the same suppression went on in your class. Females who ask for help are not weak. Nor do quiet girls lack intelligence. The loud, pompous boys shouted their opinions back and forth and you catered to them. To believe that a male because he is loud, has a penis, and has an opinion that he possibly has never questioned, never doubted makes him stronger and more suited in a profession for English or Poetry or Writing is only aiding in female suppression. Ask yourself this, (you may not be able to do this being that you, like most males may never have doubted anything about yourself) have you ever considered the possibility that all students in your class posses the same potential in writing and in poetry and in thought. And collaboration, asking for help, is not a weakness as males see it. Collaboration, and question, and doubt, and over-thinking may bring about something more beautiful than a one-tract, I am right-you are wrong competitive atmosphere. We are all forced to live in a world that often lacks consideration and concern. All I am asking you to do is to consider- throw yourself into question and doubt. Turn the mirror upon yourself. Erase all of your previous delusional thoughts of what constitutes intelligence. Ask yourself if you see gender- we all do. Ask yourself if you saw a weak girl, but she wanted help.
Saying all of this, I remember. Who am I to be questioning you? You are a professor and let us not forget a male. You have that lovely diploma. You have studied more, you know more than I do. What am I but a quiet girl with whimsical, contradicting opinions. A girl who never knows for certain if she is right or wrong. But neither do you.
Filed under: life stories
The day started in a check out line and ended with a hungry bug’s suicide into my hot chocolate
She stood next to me in line–the Doll girl, I named her. From top to bottom she was impeccable, it was as if my favorite blonde haired, blue eyed, anatomically proportionate Barbie decided to reappear after sixteen years of lost playtime. She didn’t look at me, she couldn’t be bothered. But I couldn’t help but stare at her. I was lost deep in thought about her legs and how they were so long and thin, and her breasts and how they were the perfect size between burdensome and playful. She saw me staring at her and I saw her glance over at me out of the corner of her eye. Quickly, I pretended to be preoccupied with the selection of granola bars, and mints. I listened to her order, her soft voice directed that the cashier deliver a bottled water in return for her dollar and fifty cents. She had the exact amount; No need for change. I watched her long, thin legs step one in front of the other, like grass hopers jumping from one blade of grass to the next. Her legs glided, quickly but gracefully up and down, one in front of the other. She danced when she walked, and just like that she left me. I looked at the cashier, shit, I had forgotten what I needed. I panicked and grabbed the granola bar. “Two dollars and forty-seven cents”, he smiled at me, probably I thought because last week his manager had cornered him, blaming him for the low-customer satisfaction “Jason, Jimmy, whatever your name is, you need to be nice, smile more, stop reading your book when you’re behind the counter and start asking people if you can help them find something” and Jeremy, not Jason or Jimmy, was thinking to himself all the while “Who the fuck needs help finding what they need in a four isle convenient store”. Fuck, the forty-seven cents. I just gave him four dollars, and told him to keep the change.
The entire day, Doll girl played in my thoughts- I authored the story of her life. I concluded that Doll girl had been born with those perfect legs- the day she popped out of her mother’s womb, her legs outstretched all of the other newborns in the nursery. Those legs took her places, and she could see the tops of everyone’s head. It irked her to see all of the dandruff, the grease and the dry skin. The issue of hygiene needed to be addressed, and she saw her long legs perfect for the job. Riding the world one flake at a time, Doll girl become a legend. Boys loved to stare up her long legs as she stood overtop of them, wondering to herself if they ever bothered to wash their hair before they came to see her. She had no time for boys, or men, or other women for that matter. She had a mission-to put an end to grim, and dirt, and flakes.
After I had finished my thoughts about Doll Girl, her remarkable long legs, and her beautiful life. And after using a mirror to check if I myself had grease, or annoying flakes in my hair-because those are the sort of things I miss sometimes, sort of like the forty-seven cents-i just say fuck it and go on with my day. I sensed a craving in my stomach or perhaps I scented Greg’s hot chocolate as he passed my cubicle. I walked down the hall to the beautiful, classy vending machine that would spit out my hot luscious chocolate concoction. I pressed the button that read “English, gourmet hot chocolate” and watched as the gourmet powder fell into a styrafome cup. A pause from the machine, almost as if it was deciding whether or not to finish my drink. Then the hot steaming water poured into the styrafome cup and the powder. And vovli- English gourmet hot chocolate was made.
I forgot to grab a lid, partially because I was eager to drink the hot chocolate, partially because I was too lazy to search for a lid in the mess of them that were all spread around on the table. I could spot the medium, and large lids easily but my small lid I couldn’t see. Fuck the lid, who needs a lid, you just drink it anyway.
A lid would have saved him
He, like myself, was simply wishing to drink a sip of the English, gourmet hot chocolate
Perhaps, he would take a dip into the sweet abyss
Swimming in chocolate
sipping a little as he perfected his back stroke.
A good idea he thought-A great idea
Swimming and chocolate
Beautiful.
So he dove in from the top of the vending machine,
not just any dive,
his signature move,
a front flip into a back pike.
and he nailed it.
The chocolate encompassed him, and he opened his mouth
but he couldn’t taste chocolate
all he tasted and smelled was his burnt body
and he realized he dove into
a styraphome hell.
I saw his dead body floating in the dark brown water and All i could think was
Why didn’t I put the lid on the hot chocolate.
Filed under: life stories
Yesterday I went to the strip district after I ran. I had gone there once before, I liked it probably because it was new, exciting, and busy. People were all around me, all different sorts of people- white people, black people, asian people, fat people, thin people, angry people, happy people. I felt refreshed by the variety. I listened to the music playing in my ears and just looked around, I simply allowed myself to get lost in the beautiful pottery, or the dried flowers, or the different types of chocolate. I allowed myself to feel happy, to stop thinking and just listen and look. The Asian market intrigued me because of its’ uniqueness- I walked around the aisles looking at the different types of food and drink, like coconut sodas, or the dried meats from some sort of animal, or the green tea with the ginseng root floating in it’s glass bottle. I loved the feeling of seeing something new, or perhaps I thought that by seeing these things I made myself more unique. Maybe because I saw the Asian man working at the counter I was liberating myself.
A black lady asked the Asian man who was stocking the dried meats with their foul smell on shelves, “Where are the coffee packets?”. There was no response, not even a movement, the asian man just kept stacking the dried pieces of pig fat on the shelf in front of him. The black lady looked at me, as if to reassure herself that she actually did speak out loud. I looked back, I was interested in the Asian man stocking meat and this black woman and her coffee packets. Not a word was spoken between us in that moment, but she knew that I had heard her question and that the Asian man was either ignoring her because she was black, or he could not understand English. So, she put her face directly in front of his and stated, “You don’t speak English.” It was not a question, It was a statement. He replied back by shaking his head and the black woman looked at me and rolled her eyes.
The liberation disappeared. I remembered where I was, I was in Pittsburgh. I remembered that the ginseng roots, and the coconut sodas did not have anything to do with me. I was a white, brown-haired girl, with a tan listening to music in an Asian food store, where I did not belong.
