Why have I been denied?

As I sleep my teeth are set against each other in noisy abandon and I awake from troubled dreams with an aching face. Will I grind my teeth even in death? My final rest burning and disturbed?

And when will God come? Will he visit my grave when my body’s buried low and cold amid the mindless seeking of the worms? Will he come bearing flowers, sanctified and bright? Is it then that I shall find my peace, and my churning corpse mouth cease? Where is my rest? Why have I been denied?

Dame un besito

On the subway yesterday, I saw two indios, probably Mexicans, wearing starched white shirts, one with a crisp cowboy hat. They carried their guitars through the car and sang a traditional song, imploring, "Dame un besito, o dame dos." I started choking up, thinking about Texas.

I miss Fiesta. I want to go buy pumpkin empanadas and dance to oldies. I want to hear Tejano as old trucks pass by.

I sometimes can't bear to think about this place. Is this what I wanted? Is this really my life? My life is so small and dull. It is lost in the vast wash of New York City.

It's occurred to me that wherever I am and whatever I do, I'll be dissatisfied. And perhaps that's what I've wanted all along. Perhaps there is no peace for someone like me.

And perhaps this is why I desire men that are geographically inconvenient. Throughout the day, I calculate the time difference. There are three hours between us. Time zones mark the distance between my heart and myself. I am never devastatingly present. I am never forced to lose hope entirely. To be in one place would be to discover my finite self, so infinitesimal, only five foot eleven inches in the miles of New York, in the unfathomable light years of the universe.

An Analysis of the ONION

While reading the ONION, a free satirical newspaper based in New York City, I detected two basic comedic stratagems. For the first stratagem, let's look at the following three headlines:

"Nation Mobilizes For Beautiful Weekend"

"Dog Breeders Issue Massive Recall Of '07 Pugs"

"Modern-Day Martin Luther Nails 95 Comment Cards to IHOP Door"

In each case, a topic, such as pugs, is placed within a wholly different context, such as a product recall. Two disparate elements are combined. Throughout the article, pugs with health problems are treated as though they were defective mechanical products, as though people didn't attach sentimental value to their pets, which is, except in the case of working dogs, the primary use-value of a companion animal, and as though there were no concern for the actual welfare of the animals, but that the animal's problems were rather a concern because they were detrimental to animal's usefulness. This recontextualization of the pug is ridiculous, and therefore funny. At the same time, the ONION offers a searing critique of dog-breeders that continue to breed animals that are rife with health problems. The article's affected callous attitude towards pugs only adds to the humor. Callousness is often funny.

In the other two headlines, we see Memorial Day Weekend equated with a war offensive and a disgruntled IHOP patron equated with a man who changed the face of Christianity. These articles are essentially comic conceits. The writers end the article when the conceit is exhausted. A solid comic conceit will sustain the impact of the headline by demonstrating and solidifying the relationship between the disparate topic and context.


Perhaps somewhat less fertile and interesting is the second stratagem that I uncovered, that is, treating something totally mundane as news. It is a distant kin to the comic conceit, in that the mundane topic becomes funny because of its new context.

"Area Man Somehow Roped Into Arguing Passionately For Green Day"

I also recall seeing a headline a while back that said something like "Eight-Year-Old Packs Own Lunch" that was accompanied by a photograph of some junk food assembled around a paper bag.

It is the relationship between disparate elements that is surprising and funny.

Every time I make discoveries such as these, I feel I'm cheating myself in some way. I know that the more discoveries I make, the less I'll laugh. What comes to mind is the classic image of the comic standing in the back of the room watching another comedian, nodding his head and saying, "That's funny." Incidentally, I dream of someday writing a scholarly work on joke structures.

So I've decided to start doing stand-up again and I wonder if it's wise. A good set is the purest pleasure I know, but do I really want to spend my mornings frantically reading newspapers and science and culture magazines, scouting for joke kernels? Do I really want to go back to a life in which I interrupt conversations to take note of something funny I said?

For those who don't know, I made the move. I'm in Brooklyn now. It's surreal. Tonight I train at my new cafe job on Bedford Ave.

Last night I did a stand-up set. I loved it. The audience loved it, I think. It felt right. The experience reaffirmed my desire to pursue stand-up again, now that I'm through with school and have the head space and time. I probably could've done more stand-up during school than I did, but there was the fear lurking, the same fear that keeps me away from attractive me during the semester: a fear of getting carried away. I've been there. There was a time when my obsession with stand-up was all-consuming. Then I got into Rice, among other things, and my participation in the comedy world waned. But anyway, so what, right? I'm ready to do it now...

But I mentioned this to my father and I all I got was discouragement. He said it was no life for me, an addict, that it would be too much of an emotional roller-coaster and that I'd keep bad company. He also said that I needed to quit dabbling and pick something and stick with it. But I'm twenty-four. Do I really need a life plan? That seems ludicrous. And what if what I choose is stand-up? He told me to pick the thing I love most and decide to be the best at it. What if that is what I love most? I suspect that stand-up, in terms of obsession level, is at least on par with fiction writing, if it doesn't surpass it altogether. And why do I have to choose? Who cares if I'm ever the best or not? I'm sick of career tracks. I just can't take all the discouraging words I've been getting from so many people lately. I'm at a crossroads in my life and all I want is somebody to pat me on the back and tell me I'm OK. All I want is some satisfaction. I don't need to be famous.

Alright, enough emotional vomit. The next post will be less personal.

p.s. I went bra-shopping yesterday. FUCK THAT.

pretty please

blah blah blah

Today I stopped by Fiesta to pick up a few necessities and to check out my new necklace: 14k gold cut to say "Texas." It looks perfect, cute but ghetto. I'll pay for it and pick it up tomorrow. I didn't have the cash today.

I think about what I'll miss about Houston:

The paleteros with their tricycle ice cream carts, gliding slowly to a chorus of bells. Many wear crisp, pale cowboy hats. Every time I see one I am tempted to flag him down and relieve him of a coconut paleta.

The parts of town that could be mistaken for a Mexican barrio.

Stuffing myself on the buffet at Bombay Sweets.

Third Ward. Grills. Slabs.

My typical Cali Sandwich meal: a tofu sandwich, an avocado smoothie, a mung bean ball. It costs less than five dollars.

Suffocating, sensual heat.

Texas thunderstorms.

Walls of jasmine.

Magnolias.

Azaleas.

Gregarious strangers.

Friends.


But seriously, what I won't miss:

Car culture.

Strip malls.

Aesthetically repugnant architecture.

Buildings air-conditioned to sweater temperatures.

Conservatism.

That people think you're crazy if you're a pedestrian or a cyclist.

The feeling that I'm missing something by being here.




Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. I've invested in a lap steel guitar. Watching Bob Wills clips on youtube makes me think I should actually learn to play it. I've been meaning to get another harmonica as well. I had it in my head that that would be a good instrument for an itinerate girl. However, the one I had didn't stay in my possession for more than a month. It escaped my bag in Croatia.

nightmare

I dreamed that I had a tumor, a kernel of poison, in my throat, the result of too many years of youthful carefree smoking. I craved a cigarette, but couldn't partake because I was obviously very susceptible to the negative side effects.

Later in the dream, it migrated to my brain. The doctors said it would have to be removed, but that its removal would have some positive effects. For one thing, my hormones would balance out and my breasts would deflate to a more normal size. They could operate today. Oh, but there's a chance you might be partially paralyzed by the surgery. This information leaked out as an aside, a reference to a future limp. Then she mentioned that my hands might shrivel up into talons. I began sobbing, asked what the chances were that this would happen. She said that it wasn't that big a deal. Lots of people got by with claw hands. I inferred that the chances were good that, after all was said and done, I would be left in this condition. I thought of the Minamata mercury poisonings, the famous photo of a mother bathing her daughter in black water, the daughter's hands twisted as roots.



I pleaded with her. I wouldn't be able to draw, to type, or to cycle. But perhaps I could still sing. I imagined a thin stream of a melody unraveling from my still, twisted form. I could dictate my novel, a novel all the richer for my predicament, saturated with my misfortune. I'd be like Flannery O'Connor, standing on the porch of her estate, leaning heavily on her braces. I wondered if I would be able to find lovers. The lookers I'd been in the habit of dating would certainly be off-limits.



I pleaded again. She didn't understand. I wouldn't be able to draw anymore, and I drew beautifully. Beautifully? She raised an eyebrow. Yes, beautifully. I walked weeping from the hospital, away from the unsympathetic doctor and my baffled mother, to call my father. To tell him what they were asking me to sacrifice. And as I waited for him to answer, I made a decision. I would live my short, heavy-breasted life unaltered by the surgeon's knife. I would let the cancer blossom over my cerebellum. I would draw and ride my bike and take handsome lovers until I died.