So Many Little Puerto Rican Children... All Staring at Me...
Went to Amy's a few days ago for a few hours. It was supposed to be an overnight visit but by the time she got here it was already 9AM the following day. Anyway she got a call a few hours later beckoning her to come see her therapist. She asked if I wanted to go. Although I had been up all the night and day previous I went anyway.
She drove up to this old textile mill building next to another textile mill building that looked like it had come straight out of the apocalypse. There were windows shot out and cars piled in tiny parking lots. I thought, "What a lovely place to base a career as a shrink..." So we went into the building, took no note of the barren and foreboding brick walls, devoid of any ornamentation, filed our way up the stair and sat quietly in the corner of a very loud waiting room that wasn't dissimilar to a parking garage.
She went into her shrink and I sat in the waiting room watching every minority in the US file into this room and scream Spanglish at each other. Though I was almost hidden and being very quiet this didn't stop every child in the general vicinity coming over to stare at me like a three headed neon green polar bear. Amy jokingly says this is probably because they've never seen a white woman before, much less one whose gender ambiguous in appearance. Truth is all children in every waiting room I've been in have done this to me since I was sixteen or so. Why? Another one of God's practical jokes I'm sure. All I know is that their mothers generally take it offensively when I yell, "What? What are you all staring at?!" so I usually refrain from this, particularly since I don't speak Spanglish (or even regular Spanish! What a lazy schmuck I am!)
I tried to ignore the little Puerto Rican and Black children, different ages, different sexes, different mothers, all standing before me and opened up my book. Thing was I could barely keep my eyes open. I couldn't drift off with so many tiny eyes staring at me so I held it together and read a bit of Stranger in a Strange Land (an ironic title considering that's just about how I felt at that moment.) Suddenly twenty or so people both Puerto Rican and Black got up with their children like it was a fire drill and went into some poor shrink's office, which must have been huge to accommodate such an enormous group. I went back to staring at my book but all the words turned into a big black smudge and before I knew I went from reading about a Martian to being a Martian. A few minutes later I woke with a start when the book made a flipping noise as I lost my grasp on the pages. Back in an oddly silent waiting room I found myself and despite the lack of children I was still being stared at.
Sitting diagonally across from me was a middle aged white woman with a butch haircut. I knew she was staring at me merely because my face was staring to burn from the intensity of her gaze. I looked up and around. No children anymore, just this woman staring at me. I again retreated to my book, looking up every few minutes or so only to find this woman was still staring at me. What was she looking at?? Surely it wasn't the pajama pants I wore in here... I thought the combat boots and frumpy oversized sweater hid them well. Maybe she's one of the gender variants that came in here for therapy. Amy says her shrink deals with gender fuckery. Perhaps if I were awake enough to form a coherent sentence without lapsing into a strangely Southern drawl (which I was doing for some God forsaken reason that entire morning) then I would have looked up smiled as if to say, "I know you're staring at me, please knock it off." and gone back to my reading. Of course I know smiling tends to make people want to talk to you... and that wouldn't have been good at that point in time. For several hours previous I was so drunk on lack of sleep that I'd spent the entire time giggling maniacally and recollecting the time I accidentally mooned my entire extended family at my grandmother's funeral and other such horrifying stories.
I fell asleep again. Woke up to find the woman was still staring at me. I fidgeted a bit nervously and then noticed I had to sneeze. I attempted to stifle three sneezes but they came out sounding like a mouse being squished by an elephant's foot. My nose was starting to pour liqui-snot for no reason. I looked up. The woman was still staring at me. I didn't have a tissue and the secretary scared me. All I could see of her was a tuft of curly red hair over the counter and hear Spanish mutterings. I didn't feel like stumbling across the waiting room, right next to woman staring at me, looking over the counter and going, "Miss? Do you have a tissue?" while trying to figure out what the universal hand gesture for tissue is. I sniffed and fidgeted and stared at my book some more until some people came in and broke the woman's gaze so I could use my sleeve for a second. It's unhygienic I know, but I changed when I got home and didn't walk around rubbing my sleeve on things. I fell asleep a third time and when I woke up the woman was staring at something else and Amy was standing there ready to escort me out a full 45 minutes later.
The several nights previous I learned some crap about myself. Apparently I "stare through people" when I'm not avoiding eye contact and that is intimidating. I had no idea, nor do I have any idea how to fix that. I suck at being social. Also she made me read some creepy little Velvet Underground song (rats bit through my speaker wires...) and I somehow managed to make it infinitely more disturbing by adding my own verses and wording in monotone until she would ask, "Is that really in there? I don't remember that... No? OK then what do you think will happen?" This took place every few sentences. I'm content I can manage to scare the fuck out of myself and others even when I'm intoxicated with lack of sleep...
Also Amy ran into her "intense" drunken poet friend (yes, I'm aware "drunken poet" is an oxymoron) who wishes to meet me again. I think I met him once, about two or more years ago, but apparently I made an impression. He wants to let me into his secrets on publishing (though I hypothesize I already know what they are...) Why do people remember me? Why? All I've ever asked was people who I wish to befriend to remember me, no one else...
I think that's all for now.
She drove up to this old textile mill building next to another textile mill building that looked like it had come straight out of the apocalypse. There were windows shot out and cars piled in tiny parking lots. I thought, "What a lovely place to base a career as a shrink..." So we went into the building, took no note of the barren and foreboding brick walls, devoid of any ornamentation, filed our way up the stair and sat quietly in the corner of a very loud waiting room that wasn't dissimilar to a parking garage.
She went into her shrink and I sat in the waiting room watching every minority in the US file into this room and scream Spanglish at each other. Though I was almost hidden and being very quiet this didn't stop every child in the general vicinity coming over to stare at me like a three headed neon green polar bear. Amy jokingly says this is probably because they've never seen a white woman before, much less one whose gender ambiguous in appearance. Truth is all children in every waiting room I've been in have done this to me since I was sixteen or so. Why? Another one of God's practical jokes I'm sure. All I know is that their mothers generally take it offensively when I yell, "What? What are you all staring at?!" so I usually refrain from this, particularly since I don't speak Spanglish (or even regular Spanish! What a lazy schmuck I am!)
I tried to ignore the little Puerto Rican and Black children, different ages, different sexes, different mothers, all standing before me and opened up my book. Thing was I could barely keep my eyes open. I couldn't drift off with so many tiny eyes staring at me so I held it together and read a bit of Stranger in a Strange Land (an ironic title considering that's just about how I felt at that moment.) Suddenly twenty or so people both Puerto Rican and Black got up with their children like it was a fire drill and went into some poor shrink's office, which must have been huge to accommodate such an enormous group. I went back to staring at my book but all the words turned into a big black smudge and before I knew I went from reading about a Martian to being a Martian. A few minutes later I woke with a start when the book made a flipping noise as I lost my grasp on the pages. Back in an oddly silent waiting room I found myself and despite the lack of children I was still being stared at.
Sitting diagonally across from me was a middle aged white woman with a butch haircut. I knew she was staring at me merely because my face was staring to burn from the intensity of her gaze. I looked up and around. No children anymore, just this woman staring at me. I again retreated to my book, looking up every few minutes or so only to find this woman was still staring at me. What was she looking at?? Surely it wasn't the pajama pants I wore in here... I thought the combat boots and frumpy oversized sweater hid them well. Maybe she's one of the gender variants that came in here for therapy. Amy says her shrink deals with gender fuckery. Perhaps if I were awake enough to form a coherent sentence without lapsing into a strangely Southern drawl (which I was doing for some God forsaken reason that entire morning) then I would have looked up smiled as if to say, "I know you're staring at me, please knock it off." and gone back to my reading. Of course I know smiling tends to make people want to talk to you... and that wouldn't have been good at that point in time. For several hours previous I was so drunk on lack of sleep that I'd spent the entire time giggling maniacally and recollecting the time I accidentally mooned my entire extended family at my grandmother's funeral and other such horrifying stories.
I fell asleep again. Woke up to find the woman was still staring at me. I fidgeted a bit nervously and then noticed I had to sneeze. I attempted to stifle three sneezes but they came out sounding like a mouse being squished by an elephant's foot. My nose was starting to pour liqui-snot for no reason. I looked up. The woman was still staring at me. I didn't have a tissue and the secretary scared me. All I could see of her was a tuft of curly red hair over the counter and hear Spanish mutterings. I didn't feel like stumbling across the waiting room, right next to woman staring at me, looking over the counter and going, "Miss? Do you have a tissue?" while trying to figure out what the universal hand gesture for tissue is. I sniffed and fidgeted and stared at my book some more until some people came in and broke the woman's gaze so I could use my sleeve for a second. It's unhygienic I know, but I changed when I got home and didn't walk around rubbing my sleeve on things. I fell asleep a third time and when I woke up the woman was staring at something else and Amy was standing there ready to escort me out a full 45 minutes later.
The several nights previous I learned some crap about myself. Apparently I "stare through people" when I'm not avoiding eye contact and that is intimidating. I had no idea, nor do I have any idea how to fix that. I suck at being social. Also she made me read some creepy little Velvet Underground song (rats bit through my speaker wires...) and I somehow managed to make it infinitely more disturbing by adding my own verses and wording in monotone until she would ask, "Is that really in there? I don't remember that... No? OK then what do you think will happen?" This took place every few sentences. I'm content I can manage to scare the fuck out of myself and others even when I'm intoxicated with lack of sleep...
Also Amy ran into her "intense" drunken poet friend (yes, I'm aware "drunken poet" is an oxymoron) who wishes to meet me again. I think I met him once, about two or more years ago, but apparently I made an impression. He wants to let me into his secrets on publishing (though I hypothesize I already know what they are...) Why do people remember me? Why? All I've ever asked was people who I wish to befriend to remember me, no one else...
I think that's all for now.