Friday, May 14, 2010

When Will It End?

Every morning, I wake up. Brush my teeth. Dab a little sunscreen on my face. Dress in the finest clothes that Nordstrom Rack has to offer, which usually entails a sensible pair of pants, a button-down shirt, and a blazer of some sort. I look at myself in the mirror one last time to make sure that the claw clip will successfully hold my french twist for the remainder of the day. Then I am off.

Considering that my sense of style is seemingly bland and lazy, the inevitable still happens. Some bad boy in corn rows, basketball jersey and baggy sweat pants, thugged out chain, or a combination of any of the sort "hoots" at me and yells some form of the phrase "Yo 'girl', can I 'holla' at 'chu'?". To this day, I still cannot figure out. Is it some sort of joke? Here I am, this brown girl with an apparent "granola" sense of style involving dated hairstyles and even more dated outfits getting chased by a man who literally has to hold up his oversized basketball shorts as he's talking to me (or attempting to at least). Or is it just simply a fascination, a deeper desire to cross the boundaries that hold us to our stereotypes. The "coconut girl". The "thug." Is it their intellectual drive to cross the bounds that keep us apart, an effort to achieve some sort of world peace, starting in the microcosm that is Portland, OR?

When this first started happening, I fought it. Conversations went something like this:

Man: How you doin' homegirl.
Me: Why hello there mister. How do you do?

Man: Gurrrlll. The burgers at Burgerville are fucking offff the hookkkk.
Me: Indeed they are. I find the Black Bean Burgers equally appetizing.

Man: Yo, where you usually go fuck around at after school?
Me: I'm a virgin. Sorry.

However, I've learned an immense amount from these incidences. As much as these fellows were indeed pushing with their ebonics and golden teeth, I too was pushing back with my penchant for Olde English grammar and manners. I have since attempted to let go of these habits, as I've identified as just a subconscious way to "fit" in the world.

1 comment:

  1. Lmfao...for 1 ...what kind of guys reside on the trail. Sounds like you ran into video prop or video extra and im assuming he was the same lame in the poem that insulted a vibriant intellectual cow girl hehehe...but any who i said all of this to say....you are too funny :)

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