it's bloods and CRIPS - not bloods and CRYPTS

'Can i draw on your face?' 

my roommate looked up at me from her book, 'Um, no. But here,' she added, moving her top left extremity in my direction, 'you can draw whatever you were gonna draw on my face on my hand.'

ok i actually didn't have an idea of what to draw on her face, i was just amused by the very idea of it, but as my pen drew near her skin, it came to me.  i inked on her paw a single teardrop. she looked at it and we both laughed. as funny as she thought it was, my request to gift her a matching one under her left eye was rejected. something about not wanting to get beat up or something.

also rejected: my idea to dress up for the movie we were gonna see later on, a documentary about crips and bloods (dir stacy peralta). i was even gonna give her first dibs on colors. . . oh well, probably for the best, i wasn't gonna have time to iron the creases in my dickies anyways.

(about half hour later)

so, you're gonna have to search some other blog to find a descent review of the film. we didn't make it. well, we did, but it was sold out. we opted for some slots on the waiting list and waited in our non represent attire. several seats opened up, we got called to the counter. they had 2 seats, but they weren't together. roommate and i are joined at the hip, this will not do at all. a 2 minute mini conference confirmed our suspicions, separation would be less than ideal. so we passed on the 'well i might as well be watching the movie by myself - oh wait, i am' seats and went home.  probably for the best, the average movie goer who is seated next to me by chance is generally not fond of unsolicited peanut gallerying however interesting/witty/thoughtful i think the comments are. 

that and sitting next to tall one would lessen my chances of being beat up/lonely/kicked out for talking to myself. tho, had we dressed up, we could have divvied up the audience and assigned ourselves leaders of each side and made it more of a participatory event. . . please file this under 'what's black and red and not a very good idea?'

fancy is as fancy does. actually, i'm not sure really what that's suppose to mean. . .

so during my time in milwaukee, i had the pleasure of staying in a 4 (does it go up to 5 or are there only 4 stars. which ever it is, it was full star) star hotel in the historic east side district (hotel metro, for those who value transparency in a writer). i tend to be understated and what im about to say mos def keeps me true to my nature: that place is fancy. it's bigger than my apartment. granted it is a studio on capital hill that i share, but feel me on this one, the room was nice. real nice.

i, on the other hand, am not. fancy. im about as scrappy/rough and tumble as they come. put me in a tent on the roof with a warm sleeping bag and a thermos of hot tea and im good to go. the 5 layers of EGYPTIAN COTTON sheets and not 1 but 2 flat screen TVs were lost on me. same goes for the 12 super fluffy towels in assorted sizes, the cosmic array of travel(er) sized AVEDA products and 24 hour room service that included organic salads on the menu.

for the first day or two, i pretty much tip toed around. i made my bed. i wiped the glass bathroom sink counter top free of post teeth brushing water beads. i avoided like the plague the gigantic bath tub and accompanying salts.

day two or three rolls around, and really, i start thinking to myself, this place isnt all that bad. i nibbled the large piece of ok chocolate enrobed in gold foil. i hung my running clothes in the closet on the pink satin cushioned coat hangers. i broke open the AVEDA facial soap and body soap. 

day three or four and i catch myself midway thru transformation from nice scrappy privileged DIY bike punk to impatient high maintenance privileged DIY bike punk. the hot water spewing from the high pressure variable stream handleable shower head was not hot enough. the shiny white porcelain basin that floored the slate rock tiled shower was too slippery. the 'business speed' internet was not fast enough for my 'business.' the complimentary fruit from the basket on the receptionist desk had a bruise on it. 

wow. so this is how some people get to be that kind of person. somehow in the process of fancyfying my surroundings, the internal relationship between my environment and my dealing with it became inappropriately inversely proportional.  things got superficially nice, i got superficially lily livered/weak. i stopped myself from calling the front desk to file a formal complaint using the phone conveniently located right next to the toilet. 

i put my complaining for the sake of well cuz i can to a halt went for a walk to the health food store market. leaning my graciously offered umbrella into the blustery rain, i set off to find some snacks, my sense of reason. 

back at the hotel, i spent a good 15 minutes tidying up before check out. i wanted to leave a tip on the pillow for housekeeping (i hadnt let them in the whole time i had been there) but stood there with my wallet open, staring at the 4 ones and the single ten. 4 bucks seems lousy, i had been there 5 days. but ten bucks, that felt like it leaned towards patronizing. i agonized longer than necessary then rested mr, uh, mr whichever president is on the ten on the soft feather comforter and walked out. wait, do people even tip housekeepers? i dont know. oh well.

in the lobby waiting for my people, i grabbed an apple from the free basket. i got most of the way thru then stopped because the core and its immediate surroundings were brown. the apple was well on its figurative way south. i stared at the apple, then to the uniformed staff behind the desk, then back at the apple, then at the fancy run on the floor. be right back, i told my on time people, and walked across the lobby to throw the rotten core in the trash can.

rock paper scissors

im in milwaukee. it is a dry town. in the sense that there is what feels like zero moisture in the air. between the arid theater and the super fancy hermetically sealed hotel room, i feel as if my skin might crack if i move to fast or bump into something too hard. like all the freaking mannequins i keep seeing. i don't know if it is the unfamiliarity of this place that makes them stand out or what. even the headless one threw me off. as did the bronze duck by the river. as did the bronze Fonz by the river. (sometimes i wish i had a camera crew following me always and not just some of the time.) The Fonz has fared well considering the weather and weather fighting salt. i, on the other hand, could really use some lotion. i am a lizard. and this is my rock.

it's was that 'oh shit' sinking feeling that hit me like a ton of sand. it was and accident, i wasn't being careful, i was going too fast. but it's too late and now there is nothing i can do about it. my fingers, that where moments ago nimbly flitting about the keyboard now feel like disconnected tubes of lead. it's like the world/my heart has momentarily stopped and im feeling the rush of wind as the rest of the universe wooshes past me. file this under the list of cyber related maladies of today/tomorrow. i just sent an email to not the intended person. correction. i just sent an email to not the intended personS, plural. i feel like a partial, if not complete, ass. sigh. don't get me wrong, i heart me some technology. i really can't think of how we all survived without a cell phone. or email. or blogs. but that whole instant access/gratification aspect has got a case of the double edged sword. oh well. there is nothing i can do but brace myself for the aftermath. and hope for the best. maybe i aught to stick with letter writing when going personal. this kinda shit never happens on paper.

years ago, i took a sign language class. don't remember the impetus of such academic pursuits, much less any actual sign language save for one simple mildly useless phrase (I have a book). one class did stand out in my mind. it was when we were visited by real live deaf folks. two of them. an older married couple. one was deaf and mute, the other just deaf, but deaf from birth so any vocalizations were lost on those with an intact sense of hearing. at one point in the class the husband of the team addressed me and mistook me for a boy. hilarity ensued. with the teacher as translator, the man said something to the effect of 'why do you have short hair? you are a girl. short hair is for boys.' i think there might have been some reference to 'god' or 'the lord' in there as well. i don't know how i answered exactly, but i'm almost positive that it was accompanied by a shrug and a 'help me!' glance directed at my sister who was also taking the class but was spared this particular lesson due to her mid back length hair.

years later, i finally came up with a clever enough response: it was not god who gave men short hair and women long hair, it was scissors.

define dopplerganger effect

Dopplerganger Effect n.

it's when you see some one from afar that you think you know/is cute, but then you get closer and closer and the person looks less and less like who you thought they were/cute and then you finally realize that they are indeed without at doubt not the person you thought they were/cute, at which point you just KEEP WALKING and hope that they didn't notice you staring.

either/or

whilst visiting the ladies room ('is this the women's room? i just saw a man go in there!' hmph. i heard that. yeah, i've been getting that a bit more these days with my new haircut. but i figure it is either go into the women's restroom and have an awkward moment with strange ladies, or go into the men's room and get called a fag.  either/or, either/or . . . hmmmm, i'll take my chances with the ladies, thank you.) at work today, i couldn't help but observe that my fellow lady on a mission was a fan of the toilet seat covers. fair enough. i too, have made use of those industrially intimate inventions on numerous occasions. but that was a while ago. and this is now. and this is here, the convention center. they clean the bathrooms like 3 times a day here, for crying out loud, this place is hospital with out the sick people sterile. it's a piece of thin grade z paper, not a hermetically sealed barrier of the unseen. the odds of acquiring something nasty from what amounts to a shared plastic ergonomic horseshoe are low. real low. in my opinion, it is a complete waste of paper. and for what? a little bit of mental ease? 

in mexico, you have to put your tp in the waste basket and not the can. for plumbing purposes. it does make you (me) realize just how much you (i) end up using over the course of a week. interesting: seeing personal paper usage quantified, the culture shock of doing it at all, the surprise of having to fight muscle memory to comply. (also, slight tangent: to all toilets in north america, i have beef with you, what with your 5 gallons a flush devil may care attitude. in my opinion, sharing flushes should be publicly mandated. or at least strongly suggested.)

so it is a choice, either phantom derriere maladies or one less see thru thin piece of perforated protection clogging it up in the local waste management facilities.   decisions, decisions. . . 

i think i hear my boss calling me. . .

half caucasian guitar hero, you got me beat.

So i was down in PDX visiting my family this past week. after a rousing viewing of Americal Idol Season whatever, my 13yr old cousin challenged me to a game of Guitar Hero II. sure why not? we retreated to the playroom upstairs.  the last time i played GH was like 6 years ago at the nickel arcade. i am a touch rusty. so i ran thru the moderately useful tutorial first. (for those unfamiliar, a song plays, little colored dots representing the notes slide down toward you and you have to hit the button on the 'guitar' as the dot crosses a certain pt.) we battled it out, her on level medium, me on easy.  i got the hang of it just barely and my abilities pretty much just platuaed soon after. a few songs/face-offs of me losing to her later, she comes out with 'so there was this kid on ELLEN,' - oh, good i thought, 'breaking the news' to her won't be that bad, she watches ELLEN, she's hip to the homes. never mind the fact that i look like a 13yr old boy and how the words 'ilxxxx' and 'dating' never occur in the same sentence so coming out to her would probably be more of a formality at this point. but regardless, this is a good start, go on then -  'who was like really good at Guitar Hero, like he could do the highest level without missing anything.' 'oh wow,' i sed. 'yeah, it's so not fair, ASIANS ARE SO GOOD AT EVERYTHING.' oh, wow  i thought. didn't see that one coming. so this is the point in the story where i should have said, 'well, actually, that is what we call a stereotype. and here is why it is not the best thing ever...' but in reality, i said nothing. a whole lot of nothing. i kinda spaced out trying to think of a response and missed like 5 dots in a row, thus ensuring yet another defeat.

in my head i imagine our relationship to be a buddy buddy, older relative/younger relative relationship in which i answer her questions and dispense advice about life, people and the world at large, spoken or otherwise, in a non-judgemental, easy to understand, informative, entertaining way. and to her i am someone who is easy to talk to and trustworthy, admirable, cool. but really, right now, i'm her quiet, awkward, older tomboy of a cousin who has tattoos and lives 200 miles away in Seattle. 

in hindsight, i can easily see that she was making a sweeping generalization about his perceived innate abilities and the color of his skin. and a simple, leading question like, 'well, why do you see that as unfair?' would have opened the doors for a rich discourse on racism and how it's not ok to make fun of gamer nerds. had she been some a-hole dude, or even a peer at a party, i (would like to think that i) would have no problem calling them out on what they said. but having the source of those words be a cute blonde blue eyed blood relative is a little disarming. i couldn't even bring myself to say, 'well, i can name like 5 asians i know right now that are not good at a lot of things.' which is, to be quite honest, the first retort that sprung to mind.

as we continued to play, i kept trying to figure out how to pull the convo back to the subject of ASIAN CHILD PRODIGIES. which is hard enough as is without having a stream of colored dots coming at me in a slightly predictable manner. all i could think of was to ask her if she's read the Joy Luck Club. but when you know the answer is already, 'No'...

so we just played. talked about video games. in the quiet spots of our conversation, i resolved to myself to in fact be that older cool relative who gives sage advice and challenges your ideas of what those billions of people whose descendants look nothing like you are actually like. next time, i will be prepared, have responses lined up, maybe even see it coming. but as of right now, in this very moment, i suck at this game. 

SHRIVELED not SHRUNKEN! who ever heard of a shrunken eyeball? i mean really.

SHRIVELED EYEBALL VIDEO FEST

is happening Feb 27th, Feb 28th and March 1st.

Friday 2/27

Fandrich Piano Studio

1513 14th Ave  (14th and Pike/Pine - Cap Hill)

DOORS 8PM

Saturday 2/28

Sukha Yoga Studio

224 1/2B Minor Ave (across the alley from the church parking lot)

Cascade Housing Collective

DOORS 6pm

Sunday 3/1

Bella Vitale Studio and Gallery

5917 Airport Way S (Georgetown)(above Jules Maes Saloon)

DOORS 6PM

i have a film showing all three nights and a not so secret slideshow performance on the last day in georgetown. maybs i see you there.