The All-Too-Familiar Dishes in the Sink

I use the last bit of paper on the toilet role. As I'm about to leave the bathroom I look at it and think: That brown cartonesque cylinder really doesn't add much in the way of beauty to our bathroom. But what actually makes me remove the bare toilet role and throw it into the trash is the thought that follows: I hate it when my roommates just leave it there for the next person, who is most likely an innocent victim of someone else's procrastination. He/she most likely rushes into the bathroom after holding it in for the entire car ride back home, to face a big surprise after their release--no TP.

I  am cleaning my room, and in doing so, I usually remove all of the empty cups that were filled with water at some point. I am tempted to leave them in the sink, but then I think: God, I hate it how whenever I come home the sink is full--the sink if full of manifestations of background stories:

• A cup I found in the living room that wasn't mine so I left it in the sink
• A dish and two pans I used to make myself lunch quickly and then ran out the house
• Utensils that I keep forgetting to wash because they're smaller and less obvious than dishes
•  I rather sit on my computer for the five minutes I have left before I have to go to work than wash my dishes or clean the counters my peanut butter, jelly and water residue mixed to create

And there we have it: The accumulation of 7 hours of procrastination on sticky tables, a full sink and a dirty floor.

But the point of writing all of this is not to complain at all. It's to draw attention to this bizarre phenomenon. We've all been there....Or am I alone?
Your dishes in the sink irk me, my dishes in the sink are fine.  Or...better yet...the blame game:  Maria says, "Katie never cleans her dishes " (without noticing that 3 of those dishes are hers).

What is this all about?

Well, it seems as though it is easier to not do the dishes than to do them. Doing them requires a consistent vision for a clean house. And if this isn't on your mind or on your list of priorities, it is much easier to toss a dish in the sink and then forget about it than it is to take the 43 seconds it takes to wash your cup. It requires mental energy.
If, on the other hand, your mind is plagued by how many people might have written on your wall in the last 15 minutes or what Focault might say next about the role of historical perspective in counteracting war as the foundation of institutions of power in "Society Must Be Defended," you won't clean that dish.  Because doing so requires you to put Focault on pause or your email compulsion on hold to take a whole other mental direction.

So what helps turn this around?

When I began reading Real Simple magazine and uncovered the real reason behind my laziness and reluctance to cook, I began to clean up after myself on an exponentially more consistent basis than I had before. I envisioned a nice apartment, opening my fridge and being able to see all of its contents instead of guessing that the soy milk might be sitting in the back somewhere between the old cilantro and the dry carrot. Visions of myself waking up in the morning to the fresh scent of laundry sheets and to a bathroom ready to offer me my toothpaste, brush, cleanser and moisturizer without having to tip toe over accumulations of lint.  I envisioned myself actually wanting to get up in the morning because I don't have to sort through everything on top of my desk, inside my closet and in my dresser to find it, I'll just know where it is.  And this has virtually changed my life.
The problem is that not everyone followed me in this vision--probably because the people I live with are not as complex as I am and can live with a smaller set of requirements than I can.  We must also note that I live in a hippiesque situation reminiscent of the communes of the 1970's with compost bins and everything.
But the point is what motivates me, what motivates us. A vision of a nice place is the bigger picture, but what keeps me from leaving that one dish in the sink to go check my email for the thousandth time? It's the thought: I hate it when my housemates do this.

So what would it look like to inspire this vision, if you will, in my housemates? Because if you think about it...I probably would have left that dish there had it not been for the fact that I hate when other people leave their sticky things behind. Maybe inspiring others to clean up after themselves requires a certain level of frustration and exposure to the messes others might leave. If you are frustrated when people do it to you, you won't want to do it to them. If you don't care when people do it to you, you'll probably do it to them. And if no one ever does it to you, you don't know how it feels to live in someone else's mess, so you may never even get the opportunity to "not want to do it to them."

Family

I remember the first time I attended a summer program. It was junior year of High School, and for the first time, I felt loved. Sure, I felt nostalgia for the people that knew me best. But, to be honest, those people who "knew me best" didn't always love me best--doesn't mean they didn't love me as best they could.

That month in the program, however, made me feel belonging for the first time in my life. I ate with these people, woke up with these people, slept in bunk beds and sleeping bags next to, read and joked with these people. We spent 24 hours a day together and they soon became my family. We experienced life changing moments together-like when we hiked up Giant Mountain in the Adirondacks and I was tired to the point of fatigue, we encouraged each other through.

This experience had taught me that the thing I had longed for all of my life was possible: family. And not just any family, but a family that embraced me, encouraged me and was present on a constant basis.
When the program was over I cried. I cried as I walked to the car, and reluctantly placed my bags in the trunk. I was depressed for weeks, and when I hiked Mount Monadnock a month later with "the people who knew me best" I cried-we bickered all the way up the mountain, and it just wasn't the same.

And I guess living in the commune is kind of like this. I have lived here for a year already and these people have become like my family. But I must admit, there is a level of mistrust here--like I don't actually feel like they can replace the stability that a family provides.
A family is committed to you no matter where in the world you are. Your primary allegiance and devotion is to the people who reared you. When you don't have this, how might this affect how you see yourself?

Whenever I see fathers walking their daughters down the isle, I cry.
I get knots in my throat when I see families-dads and moms and sisters and brothers-going out to dinner together.
I look over attentively when my roommate calls her parent for advise in a desperate situation.
And these tears come from a different place than the ones that come out when I am frustrated with work or with achievement-related things. These tears come from a place of deep fear- that I lay on no real foundation; that family is not something that exists for me, in the typical sense of the word.

According to Urban Dictionary....

	Apparently, my name is meant to occupy the silence of a stupid mumbling comment.  Awesome.  Annerythinlikat
	buy annerythinlikat mugs, tshirts and magnets Used in conjunction with a sentence during a pause in which you are deciding what to say next or ending a sentence to occupy the silence of your stupid mumbling comment or story. (and-every-thing-like-that) I was going to a meeting where I was going to be instructed on how to instruct, annerythinlikat. andevrythinglikat likat harrydeadcat likiss annerything by Jerett Aug 20, 2006 share this http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Annerythinlikat

Cultural Capital

A kid at my job was sitting behind me earlier this week. And after messing up his computer clean up by accidentally pulling a plug, I tried engaging what seemed like an otherwise friendly dude in conversation. For some reason, my code switching kicked in, and this reason is not unknown to me. I tend to code switch depending on who I am talking to. But, often, when the actual switching of codes happens in front of the person I'm speaking differently to, the results are usually relatively awkward.

[Like the time I was saying good-bye to a friend by over-pronouncing all of my r's as I would speak to most of my college friends, and my proper good-bye got intercepted by a dude in Central Square saying,  'Ey yo, what up,'
And I, in my many years of experience with getting hit on in Central Square, just said,
'Wud up,'  which, in turn, elicited an awkward response:  'Why you talkin' like that all the sudden?'
 Ah! Cuz I adapt how I sound to who I'm talking to and I'm a confused bi-product of a multicultural context.]

So my slang kicked in at the office and the computer kid said,

                "Please don't use that word ever again."

 He says this with a sense of authority, as if he is the slang-keeper, holding the authority to approve or deny the use of slang terms to anyone he deems incompetent. And worst of all, he says this to me as if I'm some suburban white person trying to impress him or something.  No offense to suburban white people, but that's just not who I am. And if I was, I would be writing a whole other post about the socially acceptable uses of certain terms and how who one is affects how well these terms are received.

      Well, the conversation doesn't end here. He proceeds to challenge how Dominican I am, asking me to "say something in Spanish."
"You were born here?"
"Yes," I respond.
"Then you're American. Say something in Spanish, you probably can't speak it."

And here I am sitting in my cubicle with my pencil skirt and button down blouse, with client files stacked next to me, listening to this kid in baggy jeans with a modern day jerry curl challenge me to a cultural match, reminiscent of High School "yo' mama battles.'

        I ignore it because...why wouldn't I? I'm done with my friendly attempt at conversation. This has now stepped into a realm I am not willing to engage.

        My coworker happens to pass by, addressing me in Spanish, to which I respond in Spanish. And of course, he says: "See, you're not Dominican. You don't speak Spanish."
Ummm ok.... I ignore.

He proceeds to educate me about said Dominican spanish and explains, "See, you have to know about el tigeraje..." Now, tigeraje is actually not used correctly in this sentence. Tigeraje refers to street smarts, which he meant to use in order to explain that if I did not speak with Dominican slang I surely wasn't Dominican.

      Although the encounter is laughable, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and with questions about our perceptions of people. Granted, I was born in the United States and went to a private college. But had he known my background, would he have treated me this way and questioned me so intensely? Had he seen me in a context other than my work environment where my language sounds different, would he have received my switch into slang as defensively as he did?

     Of course I was not going to speak Dominican slang in the office, because 1. I'm in an office setting, which requires a certain degree of professionalism.2. I was not born in a rural town outside of the city in Dominican Republic, I was born in Cambridge.  And 3.  The Spanish I know as my first language comes from a family that is relatively proper.

    Had he known that our backgrounds were probably not that different-that my mom was a single parent, that I grew up in project housing, that graffiti intrigued me as a 14 year old and that I was part of a rap group throughout my adolescence, known as the girl that raps; that I read Source magazine and followed the East Coast-West coast battle long before he was born (represented by Tupac and Biggie); that I cried when The Lox and Faith Evans sang We'll Always Love Big Papa--would this encounter have panned out differently? But listing my credentials is a waste of breath in this situation. The only reason I list them here is to get at a larger point: We assume things about people, especially when it has to do with culture. We use our "cultural capital" to lord over others sometimes, like-

"I grew up in the projects, my big brother is in the Latin Kings, my cousin snorts coke and my mother left me when I was two, what about you?"

Someone in this situation is not lamenting their childhood nor projecting their feelings of brokenness here. They are, in fact, gloating in a self-aggrandizing manner because the culture affirms this kind of background as evidence of cultural badges of honor.
     And this attitude is not limited to people growing up in an urban context. I see this in suburbia all the time. Take the all too familiar post-Gordon party, for instance, I hear conversations like this often:

-"I went to community college for six months, so I was totally in shock when I went to Gordon," says the blonde kid from New Hampshire whose family is Republican, as he ostentatiously smokes a cigarette and blurts out the word "sex" every five minutes.
-"Six months!" Cries the other. "I went for two years before I transfered to Gordon! Ha! Take that, you ignorant fool!"

Well, friends, guess what? There are people in the world with even greater exposure to all things un-Gordon than you! Who have no clue what evangelical even means and who have never seen so many look alikes together in one place in their lives.

    And the same goes for homeboy who was so proud of his knowledge of street Spanish. Listing my 10 years of bilingual schooling, my experience providing interpretation services and my experience tutoring Spanish is probably irrelevant here. Never-mind the fact that Spanish is my first language and it's the only thing I've ever spoken with my mother. I would be just like him if I began to engage him in his world of laying claims to cultural capital. Because in the end, there is someone who speaks even better Spanish, who is more Dominican than the both of us combined; namely, people who live in DR. So our cultural battle here would be nothing more than trying to prove one of us is more clueless than the other. So that it doesn't have to do with culture at all, but with pride.

Friday night

It's Friday night. 9:10 p.m. to be exact.
I'm sitting in my room listening to Erykah Badu, and I don't feel bored.
I don't even feel that eerie feeling that grips me when I've spent too much time inside my own head.
I don't need to go out tonight. Just ask Brad how surprising that is-in contrast to every other previous weekend where I complain about being a 23 year old locked up in suburban hippidom, oppressed by bonfires and blocked from going out- I'm totally ok tonight; just sitting here, chillin' with my girl, Erykah Badu; listening to her advice, her words and soaking up her soulful voice. And not only is this impressive in of itself, but listen to this: Up until 5 minutes ago I was without internet. Without internet! And although I was sure that my life would be exponentially better tonight if my wireless started working, I was ok.
I don't have a date. I'm not in New York City, caught up in a cloud of aesthetic bliss, surrounded by tons of other good looking people walking to vegan restaurants, jazz venues and getting hit on by the cute guy standing on the other side of the room. I'm not at a salsa club with pretty makeup and in my favorite cocktail dress. Not tonight.
And here's the realization: Whenever I am bored, anxious or unsatisfied on a given uneventful Friday night, it's only because of my expectations. I expect to constantly be surrounded by Monica, Rachel, Joey, Ross and Chandler; to always have Central Perk to go to and to always have a date lined up. So that whenever these things don't come to fruition I am let down and frustrated.
So, it must be that the reason I am content tonight is because I've abandoned those expectations. Tonight I'm thinking about the fact that every moment does not have to be filled with stimulation. Not every moment has to reach the peak of excitement. Not every Friday night has to be filled with lots of activity. Those moments are great, but so is this. When those moments are absent, I must take the time to take inventory, rejuvenate. Going on a run/walk, taking out my mat and practicing yoga. Or heck! Not doing a damn thing because how often do you get the chance to sit and do nothing without an assignment in the world hanging over your head?

Sure, it's nice to distract yourself once in a while, but isn't there a problem when we are in a constant state of wanting to escape time with ourselves? I can finally look at myself and answer truthfully: All you got is yourself, m'ija. But that's not all! You have had, and will have moments of fun, of travel, of laughter with friends. Let tonight be mellow and sit with yourself. And even if you do nothing else but lay on your bed, listening to Erykah Badu, that's ok. Chill back, relax and don't you dare call Tyrone's crazy cousin ;)

Compassion for the powerful

You can make me small. You can make me cry. You can make me ball my eyes out. Of course, that wasn't your intention, however. I am your threat. Threatening to the columns that hold up your secure world. So you were just retaliating. Of course.
You expected me to come at you with yells and stones. But once you saw my tears you realized I'm weaker than you thought. And you smiled inside because you regained your power and acquired the ability to say, I can help you.

But once my tears are gone and I regain a sense of perspective. That I, in fact, am not doing poorly. That I, in fact, am not bad at what I do. And that you, in fact, are the very thing I learned about in college and in life: We belittle the people we serve. I get angry once I realize this. And I misunderstand you.
Because see, I was trained to understand the downtrodden. I was trained to understand the oppressed and vulnerable, even as they yell at me. But I don't know how to understand you when you stand over me with your power and make me feel small. How can I be compassionate towards those in power-at the top? They need it too. In fact, they might need it more.
Because the downtrodden know themselves. They know they are downtrodden. But the powerful are deceived: They are addicted to their own status and it fuels their identity. And if you ever told them this, they would roar at you from the well of their need for security. "DON'T YOU DARE CHALLENGE MY IDENTITY."
But how can I not? When the oppressed who are in their hands will be crushed by their need for affirmation? How horrible is it that their affirmation comes from the knowledge that those under them need them to survive?
O powerful one, you can let your guard down. You have value beyond the need others might have for you. Even if no one needed you, you are valuable. People would in fact love you even if they didn't need you. People would be empowered if they learned they didn't need you. And you might be empowered by believing that they can survive on their own. You will be free the second you are comfortable with your strengths and weaknesses and when you remain unthreatened by someone with a different perspective and with a different strength. Resist the temptation to capitulate on their weakness, realize the strength you have that they may not. And share with them, learn from them in a spirit of reciprocity.
I want you to know you can help me. But I want you to know that if I can ever help you, that's Ok and you'll still be amazing at what you do.

Social services

You're so good at what you do.
You even work beyond the hours that are required of you. Time. Efficiency.
You have all of this quantifiable data about how you help people. And you feel great.
But hold on, someone comes along, saying that this job is actually not about you. It's about the clients. Someone comes along and says, 'Oh yea, food stamps are important. But there's something else there that makes them need the food stamps in the first place." You help. But you let them know you are their helper. Without you they could do nothing. These people are disgusting to you. Oh yes they are. These persons with God-given talents and dignity are the ungrateful scum of the earth to you. Why they don't respond to your many calls? You hypothesize: It's because they're lazy. It's because they are ungrateful.

These people are survivors.
Their supposedly disgusting bathrooms are part your imagination and part a reflection of the sexual abuse that happened from the ages of 5-7. Their inability to get up in the morning is not laziness and cannot be explained away with "they just don't want to." It's a reflection of the fact that their mother never got up to take care of them, never made them the breakfasts that you got to enjoy. When you were thinking about Barbie Dolls and your greatest worry was whether you were going to get the toy you wanted at Christmas, they were in bed worrying about whether daddy was going to come wake them from their slumber by slapping them across the face when he came home drunk. You think you are such an expert on their lives? You've been working with "people like them" for a period of a year maybe, maybe two, for the last 5 years or so. They--they have been living their difficult lives for 20 + years. They are experts on themselves. Have you ever thought to ask them, Why? Why are you in shelter? Why are you here instead of in college? Why are you with that abusive boyfriend instead of with a man who will love you? Why are you in shelter instead of living in an apartment like mine? What is the difference between you and I?
You don't ask because you assume the answers to these questions. And they all culminate in theories of laziness and "because they don't want to."
But you're so good at what you do. You manage their lives like they could never imagine managing their own.
But that's part of the system, isn't it? Let's keep tossing them left overs of fish, while never teaching them that they have the potential to fishermen. That they have the potential to be fisherwomen.