As I approach the oven from my sanctuary atop a step stool, reluctant to reach out and actually grab the tempura shrimp from the stove top, my nemesis sprints out from beneath the greasy black appliance, runs head first into the "wood" paneling on the far side of the kitchen and slithers his (or her) way into the cabinet under the sink. I take a deep breath and look around to see my mom's cooking supplies, her snacks and leftovers and various coffee cups (i don't drink coffee) spread out along the kitchen counters. Of course in my mother's mind it's my fault we have mice.
I've finally figured out exactly what it was that has bothered me so much about my mom these last 10 years. It's not the blatant hypocracy (although that doesn't help), it's the fact that she can't go 10 minutes without giving unsolicited advice. Uninformed, inaccurate, unhelpful, hypocritical, bad advice. Every tidbit of anything that she overhears or snoops out turns into ammo for her half informed AK47 of emotional destruction. For years she's been asking me why I never want to talk to her, why I never tell her what's going on in my life, and until now, I never really knew. But tonight, when she came to tell me about the ways I can be more careful as to "not attract rodents" it became painfully obvious why I moved out when I was 18, why I've talked to her as little as possible over the last 6 years and why it's so depressing being back here now. She's nosy and pushy and, an overwhelming percentage of the time, just plain old wrong. I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.
It's been a long week. I've spent a lot of time just thinking about how and how soon I'll be able to get out of here. More than once I've left the house and wandered aimlessly, just to get away from my mom's badgeresque behavior. On the bright side, I'm getting a lot of exercise and doing a lot of reading. On the not so bright side, I think I'm losing my mind.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Real Subtle Lady...
Tan walking shoes.
Saggy black jeans.
Green turtleneck.
Gray zip-up jacket (hood down).
Sometimes living here in the Bay Area gives you a false sense of confidence. You start to believe that being in America's most liberal city means you don't have to deal with ignorant people. You forget that, no matter how hard we believe in equality and open mindedness, we still live in a racist nation. And even here, where our prejudices tend to be a little more subtle and often times choked back altogether, you will still occasionally catch a middle-aged white woman making a minor, but painfully obvious, detour to avoid crossing paths with a young black man.
"Look around! You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gang-bangers? Huh? No. Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared around here, it's us: We're the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So you tell me, why aren't we scared?"
It was about 2:30pm, a beautiful day, and I had hardly noticed her walking ahead of me under the BART tracks. That is, until she glanced back. Nervously, half heartedly, at me- over her shoulder. I couldn't help but smirk as I looked down the block behind me. "Yup," I thought, giggling a little bit "just you and me". A few seconds later, when she veered suddenly to her right, over the grass divider between the "bike path" (that we had both been walking on) and the "ped path", I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head. "You should be ashamed of yourself," I thought. I smiled wide, looked her in her eyes and waved cheerily as she stood still off on the side and I walked merrily past her. Shockingly, she didn't reciprocate. "I really hope she's ashamed of herself," I thought as I giggled my way down the rest of the block. When I got to the corner and looked back to see her standing half a block behind me, I laughed loudly. I wanted to yell "you're a disappointment to everything that Berkeley represents!" but I decided against it. Instead I just waved a friendly goodbye, laughed again and went back to my day dreaming.
That had happened to me once before, in the same part of town actually, but when I was in high school (I was A LOT smaller when I was in high school). I was walking to my girlfriend's house, day dreaming, as usual, when the woman walking in front of me suddenly pulled a 180. "Are you following me?!" The 140 pound (about the same as me) Asian woman screamed.
Startled, I reeled back, sure that I hadn't heard her correctly. "Wha... What?"
"Are you following me?! Where are you going?!"
I rolled my eyes and shook my head as I walked past her. "Get over yourself," I thought.
Racism and prejudice are bad. I know that and I don't want to encourage that type of behavior- but I don't live in a part of the world where I have to worry about being dragged around off the back of someone's truck, so there's a little wiggle room for the part of me that gets a kick out of knowing that a complete stranger is afraid of me. It makes me want to mess around with them. It makes me want to run up behind them and go "oogi-boogey-boo!", just to see how high they jump, and then apologize profusely, patting them on the back, smiling wide (probably giggling) and telling them that I just couldn't help myself. At the same time though, there's a part of me that is deeply saddened to know that after all these years, in a community as diverse as this one, some people can't help but be afraid of a black face. A friend of mine always says "it's the kind of thing that you have to laugh at to stop yourself from crying," and I don't feel that way about many things, but racism, and the irrational fear of a 24-year-old black man day dreaming about his D&D character is one of them.
Saggy black jeans.
Green turtleneck.
Gray zip-up jacket (hood down).
Sometimes living here in the Bay Area gives you a false sense of confidence. You start to believe that being in America's most liberal city means you don't have to deal with ignorant people. You forget that, no matter how hard we believe in equality and open mindedness, we still live in a racist nation. And even here, where our prejudices tend to be a little more subtle and often times choked back altogether, you will still occasionally catch a middle-aged white woman making a minor, but painfully obvious, detour to avoid crossing paths with a young black man.
"Look around! You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gang-bangers? Huh? No. Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared around here, it's us: We're the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So you tell me, why aren't we scared?"
It was about 2:30pm, a beautiful day, and I had hardly noticed her walking ahead of me under the BART tracks. That is, until she glanced back. Nervously, half heartedly, at me- over her shoulder. I couldn't help but smirk as I looked down the block behind me. "Yup," I thought, giggling a little bit "just you and me". A few seconds later, when she veered suddenly to her right, over the grass divider between the "bike path" (that we had both been walking on) and the "ped path", I couldn't help but chuckle and shake my head. "You should be ashamed of yourself," I thought. I smiled wide, looked her in her eyes and waved cheerily as she stood still off on the side and I walked merrily past her. Shockingly, she didn't reciprocate. "I really hope she's ashamed of herself," I thought as I giggled my way down the rest of the block. When I got to the corner and looked back to see her standing half a block behind me, I laughed loudly. I wanted to yell "you're a disappointment to everything that Berkeley represents!" but I decided against it. Instead I just waved a friendly goodbye, laughed again and went back to my day dreaming.
That had happened to me once before, in the same part of town actually, but when I was in high school (I was A LOT smaller when I was in high school). I was walking to my girlfriend's house, day dreaming, as usual, when the woman walking in front of me suddenly pulled a 180. "Are you following me?!" The 140 pound (about the same as me) Asian woman screamed.
Startled, I reeled back, sure that I hadn't heard her correctly. "Wha... What?"
"Are you following me?! Where are you going?!"
I rolled my eyes and shook my head as I walked past her. "Get over yourself," I thought.
Racism and prejudice are bad. I know that and I don't want to encourage that type of behavior- but I don't live in a part of the world where I have to worry about being dragged around off the back of someone's truck, so there's a little wiggle room for the part of me that gets a kick out of knowing that a complete stranger is afraid of me. It makes me want to mess around with them. It makes me want to run up behind them and go "oogi-boogey-boo!", just to see how high they jump, and then apologize profusely, patting them on the back, smiling wide (probably giggling) and telling them that I just couldn't help myself. At the same time though, there's a part of me that is deeply saddened to know that after all these years, in a community as diverse as this one, some people can't help but be afraid of a black face. A friend of mine always says "it's the kind of thing that you have to laugh at to stop yourself from crying," and I don't feel that way about many things, but racism, and the irrational fear of a 24-year-old black man day dreaming about his D&D character is one of them.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Two Face
I have a love/hate relationship with the concept of a schedule. There's a big part of me that desires order, appreciates predictability and values routine, but at the same time there's a part of me that loves spontaneity, freedom and just a little bit of chaos. Over the years I've had a really hard time balancing my need to know what I'll be doing with my desire to be able to do whatever comes up and I'm not sure I've got it quite figured out yet.
Today was the first day in two weeks that I didn't have any obligations, so I took some time to clean my room, do some laundry and generally get my life organized. Several hours later, when my living space was vaguely, well, livable- I sat down in front of my computer and tried to organize my time. As always, my attempt to plot out a schedule started out smoothly with my plunking down my work obligations and various routine tasks (baseball on Sundays, basketball on Mondays, showers every third Tuesday, etc.). And, as always, this is where I ran into a problem. When I have something that I want to do, but not a set time that it needs to be done in, then I have a real hard time plugging it into my schedule. Even worse, when I do plug such a thing into my schedule, I have a very hard time actually following through with that time commitment. Even with things that are important to me and that I enjoy, I have a hard time completing because of this awkward and somewhat arbitrary desire to do something, anything different. Anything random. Anything unplanned. Anything... else. I know you won't believe this, but I sometimes even have trouble updating my blog on time!
I feel like I have a tormented soul. Like I'll always be torn between two extremes. Like I'm a real life Harvey Dent. Half neurotic neat freak, half bucking bronco. There a big part of me that enjoys and even cherishes my spontaneous side, a very big part. A part big enough that I worry that th orderly angel on my shoulder (with the day planner in his pocket) is be drowned out more often than he should be.
I appreciate having fun, I enjoy having fun and, in fact, I even believe that having fun is the most important thing in life. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with going out every night, I don't have a problem switching things up at the last minute and I don't have a problem ditching my blog to go shoot pool every now and then. The only problem I have is finding the right balance between the many many things that I want to do and the many many things that I want to get done.
Today was the first day in two weeks that I didn't have any obligations, so I took some time to clean my room, do some laundry and generally get my life organized. Several hours later, when my living space was vaguely, well, livable- I sat down in front of my computer and tried to organize my time. As always, my attempt to plot out a schedule started out smoothly with my plunking down my work obligations and various routine tasks (baseball on Sundays, basketball on Mondays, showers every third Tuesday, etc.). And, as always, this is where I ran into a problem. When I have something that I want to do, but not a set time that it needs to be done in, then I have a real hard time plugging it into my schedule. Even worse, when I do plug such a thing into my schedule, I have a very hard time actually following through with that time commitment. Even with things that are important to me and that I enjoy, I have a hard time completing because of this awkward and somewhat arbitrary desire to do something, anything different. Anything random. Anything unplanned. Anything... else. I know you won't believe this, but I sometimes even have trouble updating my blog on time!
I feel like I have a tormented soul. Like I'll always be torn between two extremes. Like I'm a real life Harvey Dent. Half neurotic neat freak, half bucking bronco. There a big part of me that enjoys and even cherishes my spontaneous side, a very big part. A part big enough that I worry that th orderly angel on my shoulder (with the day planner in his pocket) is be drowned out more often than he should be.
I appreciate having fun, I enjoy having fun and, in fact, I even believe that having fun is the most important thing in life. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with going out every night, I don't have a problem switching things up at the last minute and I don't have a problem ditching my blog to go shoot pool every now and then. The only problem I have is finding the right balance between the many many things that I want to do and the many many things that I want to get done.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
I Can't Believe It's Not Confidence!
A slump is a funny little thing. It's sneaky. It pokes it's head out when you're not looking, when everything is going great and you'd never expect it. Then, out of nowhere, wham! You're stuck tighter than two pages in Playboy. Which, at first ain't so bad. You know that's the way it goes sometimes, that everybody goes through it and that, eventually, you'll pull out of it. And then a couple of days go by. And a couple of weeks. And a couple of months. And that's when you start to wonder. And right then, at that moment, mid-thought, before you even realize that you're wondering if you'll ever pull out of it- that's when the slump wins. That's when it grabs you by the neck and gives it to you hard- right in the junk. That's when it gets really bad. That's when the slump kicks it into high gear. That's when your 1 for 4s with a strike out and an error turn into 0-5s with 3 strike outs and 2 errors. Once you lose your confidence- you lose everything.
Over the last few weeks I've encountered a fair number of minor frustrations and disappointments and I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk. Things haven't been awful, in fact, I've had some great times recently, but amidst the many ups and downs I've noticed an overall trend that's having a negative effect on my energy, confidence and performance.
It's a weird little slump I'm in. My performance hasn't dropped off noticeably, but just this week I noticed that my confidence was shot. I've been doubting myself at baseball, I've been second guessing myself at work. I've caught myself silently shaking my head at myself more times than I'd like and generally thinking too much in the past tense.
At baseball on Sunday (after another untimely strike out), I made an unusual decision: I decided to be confident. Despite my performance and despite my complete and utter lack of confidence, I decided to do something I've never done before: fake it. That's when something really interesting happened: my game turned around.
Confidence is a funny little thing. It's sneaky. It pokes it's head out when things are going terrible and you'd never expect it, when you think you're just faking it and telling yourself that you believe when really you don't. The great thing about wannabe confidence is that, in my experience, it works just as well as the real thing.
Over the last few weeks I've encountered a fair number of minor frustrations and disappointments and I feel like I'm in a bit of a funk. Things haven't been awful, in fact, I've had some great times recently, but amidst the many ups and downs I've noticed an overall trend that's having a negative effect on my energy, confidence and performance.
It's a weird little slump I'm in. My performance hasn't dropped off noticeably, but just this week I noticed that my confidence was shot. I've been doubting myself at baseball, I've been second guessing myself at work. I've caught myself silently shaking my head at myself more times than I'd like and generally thinking too much in the past tense.
At baseball on Sunday (after another untimely strike out), I made an unusual decision: I decided to be confident. Despite my performance and despite my complete and utter lack of confidence, I decided to do something I've never done before: fake it. That's when something really interesting happened: my game turned around.
Confidence is a funny little thing. It's sneaky. It pokes it's head out when things are going terrible and you'd never expect it, when you think you're just faking it and telling yourself that you believe when really you don't. The great thing about wannabe confidence is that, in my experience, it works just as well as the real thing.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Last week of school
As you already know, I showed up at work on Monday grumpy, frustrated and generally upset. Then I remembered that I love my job. It was kind of a bittersweet thing to remember, since part of my frustration was that my job was going to be ending this week, but my kids have been really sweet this the last few days. Almost enough to bring a tear to my eye just thinking about it. Luckily, I'm a man... and there's no one in my room right now to question my statements. Ehem. Football. The female anatomy. Miscellaneous man stuff. OK, much better. Now where'd that tissue go?
All joking aside, I'm really going to miss these guys. Obviously, the 8th graders and students who won't be back next year most of all, but even the ones that I will be seeing again in September. It's amazing how important they've become to me over just 3 months.
At some point on Monday, while I was busy being grumpy, frustrated and generally upset, the sixth grade class made thank you cards to give to their favorite teachers. I got three. My jaw dropped when the first student ran through the door at 3 o'clock, yelled "Kenyatte! I made you a card!", sprinted across the portable waving a piece of purple construction paper at me, threw her arms around my waist, smiled giddily and presented me with the card. I stood there stunned as the grouch inside me melted away and an unwilling smile spread from one ear to the other.
Somehow, that was just the beginning. Yearbooks were distributed on Tuesday and I couldn't help but smile when 3 of my students nearly killed each other in a mad dash to see who would get me to sign their yearbook first. Then the rest of the school came and my arm almost went numb from over yearbook signification. I've never felt so appreciated in my whole life.
Yesterday was the fifth grade graduation. The major emotions associated with this event were pride and joy as, for the most part, I'll be seeing all these kids next year. On top of those, was eager anticipation, as I work mostly with the middle school students and will, in fact, get to know most of these kids better next year than I did this year, which I'm looking forward to. Today's the big one though. Today's the 8th grade graduation. The going away graduation. The goodbye forever graduation. There's at least a 50% chance that I'll be brought to tears. I never thought people could have such an emotional impact on me in just three months, but I'm already looking back on these 3 months as one of the happiest periods in my life and I'm really going to miss these kids.
I love my job. For the next 2 1/2 months, I'll be missing my job and looking forward to September. To a class of new first graders, a class of new 6th graders and 9 months as good as these three.
All joking aside, I'm really going to miss these guys. Obviously, the 8th graders and students who won't be back next year most of all, but even the ones that I will be seeing again in September. It's amazing how important they've become to me over just 3 months.
At some point on Monday, while I was busy being grumpy, frustrated and generally upset, the sixth grade class made thank you cards to give to their favorite teachers. I got three. My jaw dropped when the first student ran through the door at 3 o'clock, yelled "Kenyatte! I made you a card!", sprinted across the portable waving a piece of purple construction paper at me, threw her arms around my waist, smiled giddily and presented me with the card. I stood there stunned as the grouch inside me melted away and an unwilling smile spread from one ear to the other.
Somehow, that was just the beginning. Yearbooks were distributed on Tuesday and I couldn't help but smile when 3 of my students nearly killed each other in a mad dash to see who would get me to sign their yearbook first. Then the rest of the school came and my arm almost went numb from over yearbook signification. I've never felt so appreciated in my whole life.
Yesterday was the fifth grade graduation. The major emotions associated with this event were pride and joy as, for the most part, I'll be seeing all these kids next year. On top of those, was eager anticipation, as I work mostly with the middle school students and will, in fact, get to know most of these kids better next year than I did this year, which I'm looking forward to. Today's the big one though. Today's the 8th grade graduation. The going away graduation. The goodbye forever graduation. There's at least a 50% chance that I'll be brought to tears. I never thought people could have such an emotional impact on me in just three months, but I'm already looking back on these 3 months as one of the happiest periods in my life and I'm really going to miss these kids.
I love my job. For the next 2 1/2 months, I'll be missing my job and looking forward to September. To a class of new first graders, a class of new 6th graders and 9 months as good as these three.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Stress
My mind is flooded. My back is sore. My relationships are strained. My shower is broken. That's pretty much my week in a nutshell.
I was more frustrated last night than I've been in several months and, for the first time in a long time I felt like I just wanted to sit alone and mope. So I did. I flaked out on a social engagement for the second time in 3 days and sat at home. Half moping, half contemplating, half cleaning my bathroom and half misusing fractions. I think I really needed the wind down though, because this morning felt a lot better. Coming to work and seeing my little devils rehearsing their graduation song brightened my morning, but was also a very finite reminder that this Friday is the last time I'm going to see them for awhile and that I'm going to miss them a lot over the summer.
I have my first catering shift of the year on Saturday and frankly, I'm not very excited about it. I'd rather be working with kids, but I've been rather half-assed about looking for a summer job and I'm afraid that most of those doors are (best case scenario) closing fast.
I think I deal with stress much differently than most people. I don't panic, I don't really worry even- my mind just floods and I struggle to put thoughts together. It makes it really hard to write. It makes it really hard to do anything... or, at least, do anything well.
I had a very frustrating game of baseball yesterday. I under performed, got unlucky and (by his own admission) was victimized by the umpire. For those of you scoring at home, that's three strikes. Often times a good baseball experience can help pull me out of an emotional slump, but, I guess that'll have to wait until next week.
I was more frustrated last night than I've been in several months and, for the first time in a long time I felt like I just wanted to sit alone and mope. So I did. I flaked out on a social engagement for the second time in 3 days and sat at home. Half moping, half contemplating, half cleaning my bathroom and half misusing fractions. I think I really needed the wind down though, because this morning felt a lot better. Coming to work and seeing my little devils rehearsing their graduation song brightened my morning, but was also a very finite reminder that this Friday is the last time I'm going to see them for awhile and that I'm going to miss them a lot over the summer.
I have my first catering shift of the year on Saturday and frankly, I'm not very excited about it. I'd rather be working with kids, but I've been rather half-assed about looking for a summer job and I'm afraid that most of those doors are (best case scenario) closing fast.
I think I deal with stress much differently than most people. I don't panic, I don't really worry even- my mind just floods and I struggle to put thoughts together. It makes it really hard to write. It makes it really hard to do anything... or, at least, do anything well.
I had a very frustrating game of baseball yesterday. I under performed, got unlucky and (by his own admission) was victimized by the umpire. For those of you scoring at home, that's three strikes. Often times a good baseball experience can help pull me out of an emotional slump, but, I guess that'll have to wait until next week.
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