“Who Are You? Who, Who Are You??”
Status: Quo Minus
by F. Theresa Gillard
BOSTON, MA—(Weekly Hubris)—8/16/10—OK, I so know that I owe you, my trusty readers, a debt. I’m paying that debt in part right now.
I believe that we all have a story to tell. What is your tale (in 300 words or less, says my editor)?
Use the “Comments” section below this short piece to share your tales with all of us. Make sure to let us know from whence you’re sending your two or 200 cents, as in: my own hail from Boston, MA.
Need ideas? Well, share with us your favorite way to pass time. Or, share your pet peeve—the one that sends you over the edge. Do you have an edge? Discuss further.
Or perhaps you’d just like to introduce yourself and your how to’s or how not to’s.
What about your greatest love or your greatest loss?
Using a jump-off is always fun! For instance: “If I won the lottery today, I would . . .” Or, “If I could quit my %$# job and start my own business, my business would be . . .”
Let the telling, or not telling, commence . . .
F. Theresa Gillard
F. Theresa Gillard characterizes herself as a Black—not an African American; born/raised in South Carolina; currently residing in New England; never married; no children. Her day benefits-gets-her-bills-paid-job: a Director at a university in Boston. She proclaims herself to be a passionate never-gets-around-to-it writer who is a Rap-House Music/Cheeze-It junkie. What she writes is who she is—meaning she is a take-it-or-leave-it, yes-or-no, with-no-maybe-or-possibly person: basically, she feels it all comes down to that initial “F.” Email Theresa: [email protected] (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)
12 Comments
Dave S., Jackson, MS
I hop into my Civic, squirm around a bit and tuck my iPhone into a small nook. Ah, sweet Friday afternoon has arrived, and the weekend is open for business. The only thing standing between “R&R” and me is the drive home.
I prepare for the 16 mile commute as if I were conducting a pre-flight checklist.
Before I leave, I turn on the radio and check out the traffic. There’s something about rain that brings out the NASCAR in drivers. Fortunately, my flight path is good-to-go.
The in-flight entertainment for this Friday afternoon is National Public Radio.
After a brief wait in the queue to depart from campus, I’m off.
The dark clouds convince me to turn on my headlights. The rain is steady, but light. Finding the sweet spot on the intermittent wipers becomes an obsession. I manage to catch-up on current events between each adjustment to the wipers.
“Well if you don’t come to pick-up your wife, we’ll blow her up . . . .” The reporter on the radio draws my attention away from the wipers. I listen to a12-year-old boy in Iraq recount how terrorists strapped a suicide vest to his mother and detonate it. When his father, who had asthma, learned of his wife’s death, he wept so that he was taken to a hospital and died shortly thereafter.
I’m half-way home by now, and my conscious thoughts are fixed on the orphaned child. My subconscious mind navigates the car in and out of lanes, through traffic lights and around stupid maneuvers of other pilots. My Civic is on autopilot.
Twenty minutes later I arrive home, greeted by my wife and cats. My commute has taken me to “Kansas,” where I wish for a ruby-red pair of slippers for a young boy in Iraq.
Ace, MA
“Latino, Mexican or whatever the hell he was.” I overhear. Should I be offended? No, just let it go. Besides, he didn’t say Black, African, nigger or whatever they’re called. So, I let it go.
Flash forward a month later, someone decides to be neighborly and strike up a conversation about the noisy neighborhood. Somehow, it takes a nasty turn and rap music is discussed.
“Playing Mexican music is one thing, but I can’t stand rap music. ” Neighbor says.
I say, “Some of it can have offensive language.”
“No, I mean it was made up from crap,” Neighbor says.
Thus, I’m on the defensive about rap music. I figure I can do it no justice. Me, who ever would have thought that I’d be defending rap music?
I simply state, “Rap is ingenious considering that another genre of music was created, like it or not. So, I have to respectfully disagree with you.”
Sensing that he may have hit a nerve, he then states that colored people have created many types of music. He goes on to say he knows this b/c he watched a documentary about music on PBS. He likes watching PBS.
I tell him that I enjoy watching PBS as well. This leads me to thinking, why hasn’t PBS educated the masses about politically correct terms for black people?
I struggle with my urge to call the racist on the carpet, but yet again…just let it go. I go into the house, think about it for hours, thinking of what could have been said to educate the idiot, exhale and let it go.
I wish I was talented enough to rap about this and many other experiences thereby letting go of my frustration and anger with words.
Christina A.
….I am standing in my mothers kitchen…my four kids are crying as I send them back upstairs…there are drops blood all over the floor…my husband is leaning against the counter, near the sink…I can hear my mother on the phone, in the distance, calling 911…I have a towel in my hand…I am holding it against my husbands face trying to keep the flesh from spreading…stay awake babe, stay awake…try not to panic…stay awake…HE’S FALLING…OH GOD…
How did I get here?
Christmas of 2007 is approaching and we had purchased our two family home a few months ago at a reasonable price and a pretty good location. This was a great ending to a year that started with our two youngest children being diagnosed with lead poisoning and hospitalized for weeks at a time. We gave up our apartment, split up to stay with relatives and threw out the majority of our belongings because they had traces of lead dust…long story, in short- we had to start over from scratch.
Our caravan has been giving us problems lately…
My husband was outside trying to fix it…
He lost track of time…
It was getting dark…
Didn’t want to be late for work…
He decides to walk to the bus stop…
He didn’t tell anyone…
I am getting the kids ready for bed…Some one is knocking at the door…pounding at the back door-
My mother answers…she screams…yells my name…I am running down the back stairs…he is covered in mud…no…it’s blood…all over…
Our kids had followed me down the stairs…OH GOD…GO BACK UP!…too late…they saw daddy.
My husband was attacked and robbed on his way to the bus stop.
He had 5 dollars in his wallet.
His attacker had a sharp metal blade and he cut my husbands face- from his eye to his nose. He fell. As my husband lay in the snow his attacker stabbed him in the arm several times. One slash was five inches long and almost to the bone.
People drove past my husband as he yelled for help…he crawled home, 4 blocks in all…bruised, sore knees.
WELCOME HOME.
ftg
* Dave S. – thanks for allowing us to ride home with you. ‘Kansas’ is where most of us reside here in the U.S., whether we know it or not.
*Ace – I so hear you. It amazes me that racists don’t get that if they’re talking about any one of another ethnic background, they’re talking about all of us.
FYI – never say more than a friendly, “Hi” to your neighbors. Any conversation beyond that is bound to go way south. People are more truly themselves in/around their abodes and this is generally not a pretty sight – just avert your eyes and wave.
BTW – maybe you cannot rap, but your writing is serving the same purpose . . . Write on!
*Christina A. – Oh my goodness, one never knows what others have endured. After hearing of such senseless disregard and disrespect for human life, I just always really want to know, WHY?! And, it gets even worse. He has to crawl home? Again, WHY?!
Thank you for sharing this frightening experience. It serves as a terrifying reminder that we are always subject to the insane criminal urges of the presumed sane. And, we may never know why.
Theresa, f.
Melanie, Whitman, MA
Sometimes I wish I was a man.
Not in an I-feel-trapped-in-my-body-need-to-have-surgery way. It’s just that being a man has certain benefits.
Imagine being able to use a public restroom and NOT have to power squat over a questionable-looking toilet seat. You don’t even have to drop trou for the majority of bathroom breaks!
Primarily men are saved from the emotional turmoil of a woman’s life. We are just naturally in tune with the emotions and feelings of ourselves and those around us. It complicates every interaction and relationship we have. It’s like hearing little voices in your head all the time:
“How do you think Susan is going to feel about what you just said/did.”
“Did you consider that might make Melissa feel uncomfortable/unimportant/rejected.”
“I don’t think Becky likes you very much.”
“I don’t think you like Becky very much.”
It goes on and on. Women can’t escape it. Naturally there are varying degrees of this for each woman, but it exists in each one of us. We can’t hide from it completely. And we wonder why men think we’re crazy! WE ARE! But it’s usually a loveable kind of crazy. NOTE: Gentlemen, the scary kind of crazy obviously exists and it’s often found with the “ridiculously hot chicks.” Sorry, had to be said.
Ladies, imagine going through a day and making decisions solely on the logical implications.
What course of action makes the most logical sense?
What is the best/most efficient way to achieve the end goal?
Instead of:
What course of action will hurt/upset the least amount of people?
What is the most satisfying (to all) way to achieve the end goal?
Of course there are definite advantages to being a woman. A 300 word limit doesn’t really let me express them, but they exist. Just to name a few: being a mother, a best friend, a sister, a daughter, a wife.
ftg
*Melanie – Now that I think about it, I may actually be a man :-). However, one glaring fact debunks this – I am forced to squat.
Theresa, f.
Sherri, Norwood, MA
Anyone who knows me knows the CCL (crazy cat lady for the uninitiated) couldn’t pass up an opportunity to write about her cats. So here goes the first foray into blogging…
I live in an apartment with my two cats – Bert and Ernie. Management wants Bert and Ernie to pay $40 each a month in rent. Since they are CATS I negotiated this down to $10 each a month.
The paper on my door said the apartment building may be experiencing a mouse infestation. I’m not perturbed by this news since I live on the top floor and have seen no mice. Despite this, I still must be subjected to an inspection where “experts” will determine if I am a mouse infestation liability. They recommend that ALL food be in the fridge or in hermetically sealed containers. And yes, they mean all food. Meaning I’m not supposed to leave food or water in the cats’ dishes. I find this hard to reconcile with proper treatment of animals so I do what anyone would do: I hid everything and complied for the inspection, then went right back to reality and how food is normally stored.
It’s now been a week since the notification. My cats are crazy and hide all their toys under the couch. This means I periodically have to dig under the couch for them. I use a long ruler to accomplish this. Fuzzy ball, bouncy ball, bottle cap, lint, fuzzy mouse, dead mouse….Dead mouse? Yes, I pulled a dead mouse from under the couch. I freak out and move the entire couch….more dead mice! Oh my God, Bert and Ernie have been busy!
I call my landlord and tell them they should be paying Bert & Ernie for extermination services rather than them paying rent. It didn’t work.
Ace
Christina,
I was touched by your story and I’m sorry your family had to endure such a traumatic event. While in college, my roomate and I took a road trip and had an accident on the interstate. Although we were in a group of at least 10 cars, no one stopped. Thus, I always offer assistance. Others constantly remind me that it is dangerous to assist random strangers. I can only think that I would appreciate having someone like me lend assistance to myself or my family. I will continue to take that risk.
ftg
*Sherri – Well, now I know how Xerxes would have handled my recent mouse infestation. Although, my brother, Travis, believes that my purebred Balinese cat would have simply looked at me like, “Could you please do something about those nasty little cute things?” And, I have to admit that he’s probably right.
Good luck with mice. Dead or alive they are gross.
Theresa, f.
eboleman-herring
Hi, FT. EB-H here, in Teaneck, NJ. One of the circles of hell. EXCEPT for Dean’s and my African-American neighbors. Or Black. Considering that the family spans the ages of c. 85 to 14, they call themselves a number of things. In any event, hereabouts, it’s the Wrights and us against the world. They watch our backs; we watch theirs. We share a tomato patch. We talk out our back doors and kitchen windows. We commune. The Orthodox Jewish couple plus kids on our other side keep pretty much to themselves. The Indians and the Dominicans to our back right are ghastly in exceptionally loud and neighbor-toxic ways. But we and the Wrights represent, I believe, the way things COULD be in these United States, if people still took the time to TALK with one another. We both have Obama stickers on our doors and cars, for one thing. (We gave them theirs.) And, in winter, Scott comes over, after dark, and snow-blows our interminable driveway for us. Just being neighborly, but after a full day of work. If and when we retire and move away from hell, I wish we could take the Wrights with us. AND the tomato patch…
ftg
*EBH – I am relieved to hear that somewhere out there at least two families are having a better than average normal neighborly existence. Then, there’s still hope for me (and Ace)?
eboleman-herring
Well, you have to picture this. Dean’s recovering from emergency hernia surgery; I’m recovering from spinal fusion surgery. Yesterday evening, early, gunshots ring out from just behind us, followed by what sounds like firecrackers. Being from SC, sort of, I’m thinking, “Perfect cover for a pistol shot in a sleepy suburb: set off some firecrackers.” I call the police, who come to MY house, where I answer the door in my nightgown and say, “What are you doing HERE?! The shot came from BEHIND us.””Oh,” they say, leaving. I told the Wrights about this whole weird neighborhood episode today and learn they did NOT call the (mostly white) Teaneck cops. Race is race, still, in subtle ways. But we, at least, in two houses, have a united front. . .