or does it explode?

Her half-eaten rack of ribs go in the trash with my basket of untouched biscuits, and we push a crate of dirty cups to the Mexicans running the dishwasher. As we attend to our own hands, I ask Megan how she's lasted seven years doing this shit. She laughs, soaping barbecue sauce off the diamond in her wedding ring. "I'm just here until I can find my career."

I tried to laugh too.

I mean, it's funny I guess. We bust our ass to maintain gas, groceries and a transient escape. Chicken scratch. Table scraps. The feeling that I'm being wronged is palatable. It's the bitter taste in my mouth as I drive home, emotionally fatigued. Rent is paid by i'm sorry thank you of course. They call it a tip. It feels like a handout.

I can't just spend life with these hands out, wondering why I haven't grabbed anything. Minimum wage is not a living wage. It just means they legally can't pay me any less. I'm a small financial inconvenience once every two weeks. They only care about their margins. I'm a digit in a Profit and Loss statement. They don't give a fuck about me.

I matter.

What are my dreams worth?
$9.00 an hour?

Licensed Madness

Right now I’m working retail part-time and going to school full-time. It’s kind of tiring, but as many people like to point out, apparently they have it “harder.” So I don’t complain. I have to do what I have to do, right? The rant that follows is just that. It’s my venting. Let me put this rant into context, so you know where I am coming from.

I am used to people making me feel like I “have it easy.” Ex’s, friends, family...they all at some point have reminded me that I have it “easy.” AND compared to most people, I do. HOWEVER, there are certain things that I had to deal with on my own recently that (with the help of only a few people) were still difficult things to endure. In the midst of dealing with this, I was taking exams and making decent grades. I was writing and reading. I was acting like I was “fine.” I’m proud of myself because, for the most part, I didn’t take out my stress on other people. I didn’t belittle others just because I felt like shit about my situation. I have it easy, but my life’s not perfect and I TOO have issues, real issues. Not boyfriend problems (even though that’s a distraction for all of us). Anyway, my point is that, I have problems but I recognize that other people are not the cause of those issues and that making others feel like shit NEVER makes me feel better. EVER. SO..

Working retail has afforded me great insight into this thing we call “the human condition.” It seems as though retail is one of those social settings that kind of skews the laws of human interaction. I don’t mind working in customer service because you can learn so much from people. It also has allowed me to see how far people move in the spectrum (from humane to inhumane) given the “license” to do so.

I say inhumane but maybe I could use disrespectful? I used "inhumane" because it takes a level of conscious dehumanization to operate the way some customers do. If you ever worked retail, you know that people can be so fucking rude and so fucking rotten and we “have” to endure it to some degree. Sometimes, we bite back, but for the most part, we put up with a lot of shit. Don’t you feel like there is something wrong with us a society? Like, why is this exchange normal and expected? Why does one avenue exist where we put on a uniform and people are rewarded or consoled when they behave in a manner that they normally would not amongst family or friends or neighbors?  It’s funny because we refer to these assholes as “customers” when we complain, but would it be much more affecting to call them “people.” If you say aloud: “Today, I was at work and some man became upset at me for having to impose something on him, so this person began to yell at me or say things to me that I did not necessarily mean to provoke.” My friend told me that a woman once threw purses at her. Isn’t that childlike? Children do shit like that. However, these people exercise some illusionary authority over other people who do not deserve it, and then they walk out of there and live out their lives acting like that experience has nothing to do with them in “real life.” It’s nuts. 

Sometimes there are people who like to talk to you like you are beneath them. A white woman uses her best vocabulary and addresses me a little less colloquially and seems real proud of her vernacular. I persist on using double negatives and saying “yeah” instead of “yes” or “good” and not “well” when asked how I am, (which “good” is fucking grammatically correct). I’m sorry but having your degree is sometimes circumstantial and in no way representative of true intelligence. Yes, you can condescend and be curt in your “formal” language to this short, brown Mexicamericana BUT that only reveals your own limitations and exactly how you are no exception, just a product of your middle class education. 

Anyway, I don’t want to go on and on about all of the rude things that people do when I put on my apron. I just want to say that: treating people less like people is just that. It’s not “customer service.” Why should we create an environment for people to act abusive solely because of money? It’s crass. I want to end my rant on a positive note. I see a lot of great people. Single parents who come and by carts of clothes for their kids and nothing for themselves. I see a lot of beautiful, unique young women who have such style and carry themselves with an air of confidence that makes you so proud to be female. I talk to many non-native speakers who are so open to my broken Spanish and laugh with me when I pronounce things like bumbling fool and manage to get by in a society that seems to treat multilingualism with such partial care.

People are people.

I've been set free and i've been bound

I am going to give you moments in my life that changed me (which I will list in such brevity that they will feel like little insignificant, disparate flickers of some pointless existence. the sad part is that you will never feel the weight that I felt when those moments occurred. isn’t tragic how so much feeling can elude us from grasping what is actually only just transience? isn’t it such a trick of heightened perception? how can we exist so deeply in such a finite wave of “happening” and carry its burden for so long after it’s actually gone? how can we dream so much about things that no longer exist? living is a perpetual wake.) I’m giving you moments because I can’t carry them anymore. I am giving you my bullshit because no matter what, i fear, i will never be understood (don’t worry, these were all beautiful things for me):

I remember when you called me in the middle of the night and told me “I think we have a good thing going.” even though you were drunk and we didn’t last and I was an asshole, thanks.

I remember when I sat in the patio of the house that I grew up in and I played Pedro Infante on the record player. I could see my grandma from where I sat, in between doorways. She stood at the kitchen sink and threw her head back as she washed the dishes and I could barely make out her singing. Even when she thinks she is alone, she acts like someone is watching.

I remember the time there was an earthquake when we were lying in bed and you reached out and grabbed my hand and we fell asleep with our hands still clutched together.

I remember the time we drove down the 110 FWY (my favorite freeway). It was late in the afternoon, the sun was low but it was not setting. We had the windows rolled down and food in our bellies and beer still masking the pink of our gums. And we drove southbound on that winding freeway and turned up Beirut or Arcade Fire. I don’t remember that part.

Remember when you made me laugh so hard I felt everything was going to be alright?

I remember the first time i really listened to VU for the first time. I was in an old friend's car with a 40oz between my legs. It was raining and the streetlights were obscured by the drops of rain. The heater was on and fuck that hot air felt good against my knees.

I remember when you picked me up from work and you cried about your grandma. I thought you were impenetrable and I just wanted to hold you but I didn’t.

I remember when we got high and drove to a bookstore. We laughed so hard about nothing for what felt like the duration of a few blocks. Then we sat in the basement of that store and talked about religion and politics and the future.

I remember when we traveled two hours just to drink ourselves into oblivion (so cliche right?) and watched movies in a shitty hotel room and ate pizza in bed.

I remember when we danced in a museum to Joy Division and our shadows on the walls were like a moving picture. and when we danced in alone in your bedroom. and when I danced with your sister drunkenly at 3am in the apartment of a person whose name I have no recollection of.

I remember when we walked around the arboretum and we talked so much in a way that we don't usually get along and the day was beautiful. I'm sorry I was pressing you to leave the house but I was feeling anxious and I had to be outside (it seems like everything I do is to ameliorate that feeling in my gut). But, just being with you outside in the sun was the greatest day.

I remember that before you died, you read to me in bed from a large picture book. It was green and it had some illustration on the front cover and a pattern etched onto the back. I remember that. and I remember your hands. I will never forget your stubby, rough, brown hands. I will never forget the feel of my hand in yours.

like something out of a Miranda July story

A peculiar woman came into my work the other day. I helped her as I would anybody else. I always remember kind people because there is something in their way that I wish to emulate. I want to exude that certainty: that fleeting promise of there being something good about things ultimately. I think some people give that vibe. Anyway, I helped her with whatever and we had a little conversation. I was genuinely kind to her because (even when I'm at work and I'm expected to be polite) I can't fake being kind or mean. Unfortunately, I am the type of person who wears their thoughts vividly. If I'm not happy with a situation, I may vocalize one thing, but my face is marred with discontent. I can't hide my emotions. Good or bad. But it is easy to be friendly at work or at school or on the bus or at the store or wherever, when someone puts him/herself out there and acts kind without pretense.  Anyway, then she asked me if she could take a photo of me. There I was in my work apron doing work things talking to people at work on an ordinary Tuesday, and this old sweet woman wants to take my photo. I did not understand. I became so flustered. I asked her why? what does she want do with it? She told me she "just takes pictures people who [she] thinks are nice," and anywhere, McDonald's, the supermarket. She told me she would give the photo to me the next time she saw me in the store but I told her she could keep it. I thought it was really fucking weird. It was really fucking strange. But I let her take my photo anyway. And she showed it to me. I looked visibly uncomfortable but I also looked incredibly happy. I thought about it and I realized that I'm just as weird for consenting to it and for feeling so good about meeting this person. And even though it made me uncomfortable, it was refreshing. Is being uncomfortable all that bad? Is being a little too close to strangers that detrimental? Why is it so hard to break out of those monotonous and mechanical and layered transactions between people? I mean, you see a lot of strange shit in retail. Ordinary people come in and treat you like a dog just because you get paid to stand behind a counter and collect their money. How is that normal? That people lose their sense of respect and courtesy and slightly look down upon other human beings given the opportunity. What does that say about us? I digress. Meeting Ms/Mrs/Señora Wood was a nice little interruption. Why are we so resistant to certain levels of intimacy between strangers but then why are we so able to do all of the other crazy/abnormal/way-too-expository shit that we do when we're drunk or on social media and so on? What was so fucking scary about letting a stranger take my picture? Why was that so hard?