Without Flag, Without Country

I stopped writing when the problems confronting me in the mirror were murkier than I had a vocabulary for. Nothing prepared me; no previous coverage. The reading lists at Broward Community College were base, television too insensitive, and newspapers tip-toed around the subject.

Race.

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?	60
And how should I presume? -"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot.

I was 16 years old and in an identity crises so overwhelming, my pen ran dry. Even today it putters and pats out ink erratically like a smoker's cough. Even today I'm at a loss at how to confront myself.

My English was as sharp as a razor's edge, my skin as pale as porcelain, and my hair curt short to hide the wavy, thick wild. My look betrayed nothing. I wore band shirts and listened to punk. My friends were all white.

I wish that could be the end of the story - that's who I was. Just a teenager, just who I was and nothing more. But then came the state standardized tests. There were bubbles, asking philosophical questions. Male/Female? Well I'll just go by genitalia for that one... Grade? Easy... Race?

Race?

Um..well...I stumbled. How fucking old was I? How could this issue have not yet been settled?

Race? Well, what are my options?
Latina? I don't speak Latin and I've never been to Rome.
Hispanic? I don't even know what that means! Sounds like a cocktail.
White? I...I guess... that's my skin color... so yes, yes I'm white. Right?

It was the most difficult question on the test. I began to sweat. All I wanted in the world was for this not to be a Scantron test, so I could simplify it all by writing:
I'm a 2nd generation immigrant. My father's Cuban, my mother's Colombian. So just leave me alone about this stuff already.

But of course, it didn't end there; when the world finds a wound on your flesh it loves to pick and pick...
There was nothing I hated more than when some stereotype just off the plane from Tackyville, Colombia dropped her jaw, chewing gum stuck to teeth and in plain view, and said,
"Oomygawww, I didn't know you speak Spanish!"
"Yeah well considering I'm Cuban-Colombian, I should."
"No way! You're Spanish?"
"No, I'm not from Spain. I said I'm Cuban-Colombian."
"Yeah yeah you know what I mean. You don't seem it."

And that's the part that stabbed me every time. I don't seem it? I wasn't playing the role. I didn't have the big loop earings you could stick a fist through. I didn't have the necklace with my name written in cursive gold. I hated those - I know what my own name is, and if someone else needs to know it, they can ask. I didn't wear the tight Brazilian jeans one size too small, showing off the excessive Latina thighs. I didn't listen to Raggaeton - fucking horrendous, talentless, disgusting, shitty, uncreative, repetitive, music.

The world was confused. What was it do with me? Like if I wasn't some tacky stereotype, I gave up all rights to my heritage. As if the richness of Cuban music, the mysticism of Santeria, and the independence revolutions of South America all came down to me pouring 30 pounds of gel into my hair and an entire bottle of mascara on my eyes.

Where was I to stand, straddling both worlds, accepted fully in neither? My white friends didn't understand why I ate so many black beans and rice, why my mother spoke a foreign language in front of them, why I grew up with my grandmother. In the middle school court yard, where everyone wore a patch on their backpack to clearly indicate what country they stood for, and at lunch divided among nationalist lines, no one could grasp why I withheld myself. Those middle school peanut-butter sandwiches I packed were eaten with resentment for the entire concept of flags.

What good is a flag? It just a cloth that indicates physical boundaries. That piece of territory is meaningless. What's that piece of cloth ever done for you? It's something you're born into; your love for it is completely disingenuous,
I'd say.
They'd roll their eyes and continue chewing their gum.
I've always had a hard time connecting.

Now there I was, 16 years old, hating flags, listening to bands like Stiff Little Fingers and Sham 69 and Crass, and the whole world is telling me to choose:
I could either change my wardrobe and personality and retain my claim to my Cuban-Colombian heritage and history
or I could just cross camps and have my race match my interests.
One. or the Other.
No middle ground. No Buena Vista Social Club without Daddy Yankee. No Gabriel Garcia Marquez without telenovellas.

Is there a Spanish word for "Uncle Tom?"
Perhaps Tia Tom fits.

And where I turned to books for consolation, I found emptiness, an utter dearth on the subject. Where were all the 2nd generation immigrants of the world? Why did none turn to literary means, didn't they know there are millions of them, looking for help?
So I looked around the lush campus of Broward Community College. Maybe my assumptions were wrong; maybe there weren't millions looking for help. There they were - the 2nd generation, all lumped evenly into their camps. They had all made the choice, long ago. It was just I, standing there, in front of a mirror, straddling two worlds, comfortable in none. Not white, not Hispanic. Not really American, especially not in these patriotic, post 9/11 times. Not actually Cuban, nor Colombian. A woman without flag, without country to call home.

And when my father listened to Guantanamera, I wondered if I had the right to shed a tear.

It is only now that I've learned how to properly resent a world that would question my blood and skin; that would put conditions on listening to the words of Marti.

No Exit

The plans went wrong.
Perhaps I read the blueprint backwards or, ...

Now there's panic. What am I to do?
I built this elaborate fort.
Linoleum moat, cardboard drawbridge,
pillow dungeon.

And there's no exit.

This blog is my only means of communication to the outside world.

P-L-E-A-S-E H-E-L-P
Need flashlight and book of ghost stories STOP

The Dream's Dead, Boys

Sometimes, late at night, when too much coffee or one too many cigarettes keep me up, when insomnia lurks in the back of my eyelids, haunting me with tasks left undone, I turn over and stare at my computer. It glows white in the darkness, and on the cover dances the images of half-empty word documents, scribbled notes in the text pad, barely coherent ideas.

I wonder where I went wrong. Where I gave up on the dream.

When I was young and idealistic I told myself I'd be a writer. I'd read Gingsberg, Orwell, Burroughs, Thompson, Rimbaud, and my heart filled with jealousy - jealousy, the prime mover of my whole being - and I said, I too will write. It will be like all the romantic stories: I'll move to New York, go to school, impress the teachers with my pure talent and crass attitude, drop out to travel on a motorcycle, be dirt poor, work as a waitress, and by famous and published by 22. Complete stardom and mobs of fans by 25, at the latest. Stumble into a rock band, reach Jim Morrison-proportion, change the entire concept of poetry and fucking and death. Tragic motorcycle and drug-induced death by 27, like all the greats.

Where did it die? When did I give up? When did the blank page beat me to submission, to a hopeless inertia?

I've mulled over this question for ages, along with self-pitying tears and woes of "I shall be no Poe, I shall be no Rimbaud."

Was it the pressure? All my high school teachers gazed at my with a starry-eyed look and told me of the talent I had. Sometimes I could hear their internal thoughts, "this will be the one I reach, this will be the one that makes 30 years of this shitty public school job worth it." Maybe it was the razor lace of my parent's encouraging words: Writing? Well you damn well better become famous. We didn't come into this country and claw ourselves up from the dirt, sacrificing our health to earn a buck to put a fancy name on your degree just so you can type pretty words and earn an hourly wage.

Maybe I got into the drugs too soon (was that part supposed to come later?). Maybe I lost sight of myself. Maybe the idea of people reading my work is still so terrifying as to paralyze my fingers over the keyboard.

Or, most terrifying of all, maybe it just wasn't in Miss Cleo's cards.

One of the first happy memories I can remember was receiving an empty notebook as a present, and drawing on every inch of every page. When they asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I said an artist. I wanted to draw forever.

My parents said nope. My art teacher rolled her cart around to my elementary school desk, slammed down a piece of newspaper paper and after a few of my proudest scribbles, said "I have no idea what that is." I was told to re-do assignments.

Now when I pick up a drawing pencil to paper, I feel like I'm trying to write down my deepest urges and darkest desires in Swahili.

Perhaps I only turned to writing in the first place as my only means of capturing those intense colors my retinas register: the bright red and the dark blue and the image of a yellow balloon bobbing on top of the ocean waves as the sun breaks over them. Just another means to tie down that balloon and tell the world it's there.

But I stuck to writing for so long, that it had to have been in the cards, even if temporarily. So what stopped me?

I think back.
Way back.
And remember the time when I put the pen down, when I stopped trying to finish those documents.
And as I recall,
it was just about the time... when I looked in the mirror, and realized

I had forgotten I wasn't white.

Dear Post Secret,

So what if we shower together? That doesn't make us gay.
You keep me warm at night. It's nothing sexual.
And that one time - we were just drunk. It doesn't count.

We're not gay.

The Looming Tower

I've spent the last few weeks reading The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. I read it in the few spare moments I can catch, under the glow of the reading light hanging over my bed. Yesterday I fell asleep among the pages of Chapter 18.

I was once told that the best way to study is right before you go to sleep - it increases the chances of recall. Something about the sleep process that compacts the information and fits it tightly into the brain. Something like that...

The last few weeks I've had strange dreams. There's been sand. I've never dreamt of deserts before; I'm from the tropics, I dream of the ocean and palm trees and the gentle rocking of a wooden boat. Now I awake with hazy recollections of Afghanistan. In those quick seconds between the alarm waking me and my standing up to switch it off, my consciousness grasps all it can from the dreams. There are vague, dirty faces, conflict, devotion, pure madness.

Today I awoke with a start and whispered, AllahAkbar.
I was once religious.

It's crazy to think, and I never wanted to admit it, but for some of these boys out there in the training camps, out there on their scrawny own, conquering some measly monkey bars in an attempt to aggress against a world power, it's nothing but pure boredom motivating them to kill. All out murder.

It's the same reason Jackass existed - just a bunch of bored kids with too much energy and no other outlet. In Shiia, the strict religious laws of Islam, even pictures are forbidden. Nothing to masturbate to. No masturbating at all. A sick sexual and emotional repression mixed with a barren landscape leads to the same results.

It's the same reason right-wing Christian conservative Republican Senators leave dirty text messages on little boys' phones and have interracial affairs with transexual minors.

It's the same reason I sometimes dream of taking a machine gun and going wild in some mountainous jungle, in the name of Revolution or the CIA - really in an attempt to shake the routine and give some grander meaning to my boring and humble life. To perhaps be a footnote in the history books.

One scene from The Looming Tower sears itself on the mental flesh:
In the middle of the night, a US plane bombs the hell out of an early Al-Qaeda camp. Sand explodes high into the air, screams fill the night. And when the bombardment is finished, the US plane shines a bright light down. As the insurgents scrambled, the light illuminated the dismembered body parts of their friends and relatives. Gleaming red tissues and dirty bone, illuminated by some rich and powerful foreign entity, hovering above the graveyard. Illuminated by America, a 1984-like superpower, who's intelligence capabilities, according to one person's fearful quote in the book, could go so far as to tell the brand of underwear one wore.

In that moment I understood why - why these kids go out and kill instead of just going out to get molested in the halls of their representative government; or crash camels into each other. In that moment I thought of Orwell and knew why they do it. Living in the dirt there is no hope, living in the shadow of a super power there is only fear. There is no winning.

Might as well strap explosives to your belt before some American soldier straps car batteries to your balls.

Russian Democracy is a Joke

Yes, I have the W.M.D.'s.
No, I can't tell you where they are.

The Soviets would have my head for that.



That's right, I said the Soviets. You'd be a fool to believe otherwise.

Jennifer Gordon Must Never Know

Dear Post Secret,

I dip my roommate's toothbrush in the toilet everyday.
Nothing can stop me.

...


This is Post Secret, right?

Pushing Daisies

In case you don't live in New York City, and therefore aren't barraged every block with twenty-foot billboards, bus-side advertisements, and pasted posters, there's a new show out called Pushing Daisies. It's on ABC every Wednesday at 8PM. Daisies was created by Bryan Fuller, who was inspired by the cute little French movie Amelie; this is a wonderful thing to hear, unless you're Alessandra Stanley for the New York Times, and somehow sneak a horrible article called "Loner Finds He has a Touch for Piemaking and Undeadmaking" by the editors.

Stanley claims "hordes of viewers" were instantly turned off Daisies because of the French inspiration, which is "insufferabl[e]." Who, Stanley, who are these hordes of people? I have yet to meet one human being who dislikes Amelie in any way - I'm calling you out Stanley, provide the proof your editors are too lazy to ask for!

But Stanley being my new nemesis is besides the point. The point is that this sweet-hearted and artistic TV show, which is seemingly too good for cable, is quite possibly writing itself into a corner. As everyone knows, the only thing lonelier than pie-making is corner-staking.

The major hinge of the show is that Ned, the main character who has the ability to bring the dead back to life (with major caveats, of course), can not touch the love of his life, Chuck (who is, by the way, a girl, just with a boy's name). Why, you ask, when the two are perfectly healthy and consenting adults? Welp, Chuck should be dead. Ned brought her back to life, and one of the caveats of Ned's supernatural abilities is that if he is to touch the dead once, he gives them life, touches them twice, they're dead forever.

Other than creating a constant suspense throughout the show, since Ned and Chuck must be sure not to even brush up against each other, it leaves one to wonder: how far can love go without physical contact?

I'm relieved to know the writers aren't going to use a cheap trick and have Ned and Chuck accidentally bump into each other, therefore throwing all my emotional investment in the show into a stinking gutter. At least not in the first season. I'm also glad this isn't going to be another Jim and Pam (Office) situation, with the whole unrequited love for three fucking seasons. God Ricky Gervais, is my heart just your play thing?

Luckily, these two dig each other. Way big time. But they sleep in separate twin beds like its I Love Lucy and in the first episode, used monkey statues to simulate kissing each other - cuter and not as weird as it actually sounds.

The second episode, which aired last night, is the writer's audition for how they're going tackle this sticky situation (did I mention Chuck likes to make honey?) for at least another 4 episodes. The entire plot seemed to drive (literally) towards one single destination: getting these two suckers into plastic, see-through body bags, so they could kiss without technically touching each other. Watching their lips smooch up against that plastic, the plastic up against one another, was like having my ear licked for the first time.

From what I've seen, the rest of this show's season will have the same major plot (they go around solving murders like a colorful film-noir Scooby-Doo gang), with the secondary plot always being: How much further can these two physically go? What tricks are these writers going to pull out of their magical bag? And what if Chuck dies?

In case the writers are having any difficulty, I've decided to lend them a helping hand:

Full-body condoms - the stretchiness will allow for proper penetration, the latex will prevent any real physical touching. They'll probably having to wear motorcycle bubble helmets as well, to avoid any sort of forehead contact. If they want to get weird and kinky they can pretend they're astronauts doing the freak in zero gravity. The twist to the plot would be the condom breaks, one little sperm gets through, rendering Chuck dead, but leaving a ghost baby - to haunt Ned. For undead child support.

Olive goes on a murdering spree - she goes mad vying for the distant Ned's attention, so she kills Chuck, possibly some hobos. In a Vertigo meets Silence of the Lambs inspired scene, Olive skins Chuck and wears her as a full-body suit, and Ned can pretend like nothing happened, nothing ever happened.

Or
Ned loses his abilities - so he is neither able to bring the dead back to life, nor re-kill Chuck. This is the sweeter ending. No weird shit here.

I'd honestly like to see the writers of this show come up with something better, or even more appropriate. And I want to see some attribution (and monetary retribution) if one of those ideas is used in the season finale, you hear me?

Drink Coke

We need to castrate them zombies now, before it's too late. Before they start taking over the Executive,

dictating their foreign policy to us.

like we're animals.

To the Leaders of the Free World:

You've got the Button, but We've got the Bombs

You'll Never be Safe in New York

Tonight I was sincere for the first time in a very long time. I laughed sincerely, without self-doubt or pretensions.

I tried to keep my feet steady on the walk home, on the unevenly lit Gramercy streets. On one particular residential alley lined with wet piles of gabrage, a man suddenly jumped from a stoop and began to run. He was running towards me. He was running with abandon. His eyes looked so far ahead he saw no street in the city; he saw only into uncertainty and back into his skull. One foot tirelessly after the other, punching the sidewalk. He ran so fast - I thought he was trying to catch a bus. But as he ran his hands gripped the edges of his collar, nearly pulling his shirt off. I stretched my body up against the wall and leaky black bag to avoid being run over. He ran past. So fast.

Walking again I noticed in stark black and white the body of a woman, standing on a stoop.

"I'll get you - you'll never be safe in New York!" she yelled after the man.

When I was within two feet of her I noticed her body - not white because of the light. She was pale, weighing barely a hundred pounds, her rib cage deeply outlined against her skin, stretching against her skin in some attempt at escape. Her shirt was half off, barely covering her breasts. She sat back down. For a moment, the frailty of her body reminded me of the corpses I've seen. She cradled something in her right arm, in the crook of her right arm. She calmed down, and cradled her arm, as the desperate pounding against the concrete subsided.

I gripped my purse tighter. My steps became lighter. No one is safe in New York.

I Love Chinatown

One of the treasures of living in the city is the glory of traversing Canal Street. Entering Chinatown is like entering into a new being, a new personality. Among the immigrant red and green and gold I am the white devil, the outsider, the foreigner with a strange tongue, hovering about the city with a stupid conquering grin like Marco Polo.

Chinatown is the only place where I am Tall. The many years of harsh life have squatted these people to the ground. I tell the humble beings stories of how my fingers caress the stars, and my eyes can see the toes of God.

Which is probably why every time I return, old women take off their shoes and rub their corns on me.

They've a very superstitious folk.

You Hurt My Eyes, Time

As an NYU student, I am not only privy to harassment by the rest of the city, but also view of the latest fashions, thanks to my trust-fund classmates. (Yeah, even NYU kids hate NYU kids).

Which is why I bring a screwdriver to classes, in preparation to gouge out my eyeballs every time I see the latest, most unfortunate strong-hold in clothes: flannel.

Now I understand, we as humans have a weakness toward patterns, enthralled by the intertwining colors and shapes. But flannel? Didn't we try this experiment in the early '90s? It ended in suicide and the Stone Temple Pilots - which is like ear murder. Why must we traverse these murky, unshaven waters again?

This whole '80s come-back with the kick-ass, crazy-neon-colored Nikes, pink skinny jeans and the chicks with the baseball caps was all any human could ask for. It was nostalgia done in a timely manner - we waited 20 years to look back at the proto-humans of the Reagan era, nix the parachute pants and keep the cardboard-on-the-sidewalk break dancing, beats, and graffiti.

But like a World War II joke in Germany, the flannel and chucks is too soon. I'm still revisiting Run DMC, why do you have to remind me of Kurt Cobain?

Flannel on guys is one thing - fine, they can do whatever they want, they get points for just buttoning their shirts on straight. But come on girls, lets pull our acts together, when did it become cool to be a French-Canadian lumberjack dyke? Unless you're eating pussy in the Deep South, in a place like Mayor's Income, Tennessee, the look is completely unacceptable.

To top it all off, Chucks are shitty shoes that make everyone's toes bleed and wear out in two weeks. So let's all take a lesson from history, put away the F-shirts, and move on to bringing back how we all dressed 3 years ago.

So This is New York

So this is the big dream. Here I am, now how to begin?

I moved to New York City two years ago, and people tell me I should be happy because I achieved the dream. Whatever. I held an outdated image of what New York should be, a yellowing photo in stark contrast to the modern city.

I was supposed to live in the Village, near St. Marks, I was supposed to be in with the punks. According to plan, I would have had a tattoo by now, have been published in several literary journals, be doing the circuits of poetry readings, have a constant supply of hashish and a Rolodex full of modern Beats. I'd be jaded, addicted, platinum Blonde, and wild, fucking wild.
Yes, somewhere in there, I'd get my Bachelors in Creative Writing.

Instead I live in Gramercy, work a shit hourly job, am constantly disgruntled and broke, fucking broke. Shit, I shoulda been a rock star, instead I can't pull enough money together to see a single act, must less smoke hash at the show in a blatant "Fuck You" to the concept of authority, anti-smoking laws, and bouncers.

The sidewalk outside my apartment is littered with empty dime bags and the spray-painted words "RIP Brown." Ambulances run around the neighborhood through the night - why is that kid lying so still in the basketball court, as his friends wave down the flashing red lights? What happened here? The homeless sleep on the streets, the unemployed spend hours on the housing project stoops.

Razor blades and pain killers aren't enough. And to top it off, I'm surrounded by NYU jumpers and white, upper-class Marxist boys with tight wallets telling me about the proletariat.

And yes, I was stupid enough to enroll in a school before checking if it offered a Creative Writing major.

So this is New York. So here I am, sleeping on buses, spending late nights studying Journalism and Politics, in a desperate and mis-guided attempt at having the big dream pan out.

Fame? Talent? Fun? Coke? Shows? Friends? That sudden realization that I'm "living the life?"

The dream is dead.