« You Say I Only Hear What I Want To | Main | Karma is a Bizzle* »

September 03, 2006

"The word for today is J.O.B."

Where have I been?

Well, Coral did come to visit for a week so you know I’m out of commission during that time. We do what we can to recreate West Hollywood right here on Long Island any time that I see her.

Does that mean we don’t get much accomplished? Not necessarily. We compliment each other all day. For example: Your hair is so long, you whore. Okay, well your pores are invisible so get there asshole. In our friendship, these are all really nice things to say.

We dig through each other’s clothes and go “you fucking bitch” when we spot something we like. We spend the rest of the week trying to figure out what from our own collection we’re willing to trade. Yes, we trade. I’ve been trading for more desirable goods all my life. At 5, I watched my sister convince her friends that the puffy unicorn stickers with the fuzzy bodies were so not as awesome as the shiny red foil lip stickers and her dumb ass friends would trade! The unicorns were way better, and that day I learned how to play up your crappy goods in exchange for the real deal. I learned from the best. Shit doesn’t work on Coral though. She’ll say, No you can’t give me that taupe H & M wrap shirt for this amazing military inspired shirt dress, asshole. Taupe? I’ll then give her the finger and go, Yeah well, I got this brand new box of Colonix worth $88. "So?" she responds and it goes on and on like this. Yes, I tried to trade a box of shitting powder for a dress. What’s it to you?

We recap, rehash and rejuvenate (shea butter application all day) all while watching our favorite shows that have been recorded for our mutual viewing pleasure. We have already seen them by ourselves. Or we’ve seen them together via phone, shushing each other and speaking only during commercial breaks. Or, we’ve IM’d each other about them. It’s totally different to see them together. So yeah, we watched Making the Band 3 from the very very top, Being Bobby Brown and all the Wife Swaps (so dark-sided). Funny, while we watch the shows we IM each other. She sends photos of little puppies she can never have because the apartment man said no. I send her links to pictures of Ice T’s wife. J thinks we’re retarded, yes.

Then I went to Vegas (hate!) for a minute. When J goes on business, I follow along. Why? I don’t know either. He says he likes my company, but I only see him in the mornings for a split second and in the evenings when he has all those business dinners where I sit quiet as a mouse. I nod and agree every now and again, but for the most part, I sip on my Merlot and straight study the dessert menu. I’d hate to say something inappropriate in front of his business friends. Why I’m worried about what I’ll say I don’t know. He’s the inappropriate one in this relationship. Did I ever tell you about the tote bag he made for me that says Bi Polar on it with two dude polar bears getting it on with each other and with a girl polar bear? Who is this person? See, that’s inappropriate and he’s Mr. By the Book Straight Edge Vegetarian Teetotaler so I don’t know where he gets these ideas.

While he’s working though, that room service is the bomb. Plus, being left alone with all my late-breaking JonBenet Ramsey news and my Mormon polygamy Warren Jeffs news – oh please, I was doing the snake I was so excited. Vegas has never been better!

I got all your emails though and thanks for missing me. To answer your questions:

1. No, I’m not pregnant.

2. No, I didn’t elope.

3. So no, I’m not on my honeymoon.

4. No, I didn’t quit the blog.

5. But, yes I did get a job. Weird huh? Let's discuss.

This is great news, actually. It's not like Damn, I got a job y'all. It's like I GOT A JOB! (Exclamation point!)

It’s not a television job if that’s what you’re thinking. Shows just don’t book themselves, you see. Mercy thought that too, by the way. Yes, mom, I know they’re hiring on The View but they already have the young reality person and she sucks and she’s still not going anywhere. Yes, I know they need a black lady but I don’t know that they’re thinking I’m the one. Besides, what would I do if Barbara raked through my hair which is real by the way for that one person on ONTD that thought my weave needed layers. I had to explain to my mom that my agent hasn’t called about it and then on top of that I had to promise I'd call my agent and make a concerned inquiry. Keep in mind this explanation had to be taken from the top. Like, I had to go way back to the womb and explain what an agent actually is and how I even got one. Yeah, it's like that. Bless a Filipino mom's heart, I swear.

Anyway, it's what you all would consider a “real” job. It’s the kind of job where I have a boss, a set schedule, a business card, a designer desk with a computer (not bound by cubicle walls though), a work email address and the opportunity to get out of my house kimono and into my Theory pants. I’m so excited.

I only work two days a week so don’t trip. Baby steps. I decided to be very vocal about that big ass gap in the resume. I was totally honest. I mean, I do have a college degree so come on. I didn’t even know I was getting a job. It was one of those things where I kept seeing the man who is now my boss and we got to chatting and I was like hiring you say? And he says yeah and I say well, pretty much, I haven’t had a “job job” in a billion years straight up. He says you’ve had a job though? I’m like absolutely. Keep in mind, this conversation went down all professional like. I have a fantastic phone voice and a great vocabulary. I might be intelligent and you just don’t know it. I have range, you see. I don’t always show it, but it’s true.

Besides, I was the bomb at all my jobs before I decided I wanted to be plagued by the question “Aren’t you that girl off the Road Rules?” forever. I truly believe that too. I’ll even say that all my previous bosses were sad to see me go at all my jobs ranging from retail in housewares and tchotskes to telephone customer service at a pharmaceutical to records reviewer at a law firm.

At my first job ever when I was 15, I got paid under the table by this lovely Korean couple. I watched shoplifters at the East Lake Mall, affectionately called at that time “the black mall.” I would get cursed out all day sometimes upon first glance. “I know you watching me with your little Asian ass, bitch…” I would have loved to interject with, “But I'm also black” with one finger pointing toward the sky, but this was not the time or place. I just had to stand there and take it and then press this little buzzer that would make the old man come out from the back with -- I’m not kidding -- chop sticks in his hands and food in his mouth and he’d go, “You buy now!” Or was he saying bye, like goodbye now. Who knows? Either way, usually the shopper or would-be shoplifter, upon seeing the old man, would then deposit the fake Cross Colours shorts under a rack on their way out.

For years, I have tried to articulate, just for myself, what an emotionally, racially and now, hilariously complex experience that was but it’s hard to explain. It’s all so layered. So so so layered.

Do I talk about the irony of Koreans selling fake Cross Colours clothes at the black mall when Cross Colours was a wildly successful black-owned brand dedicated to "producing clothes without prejudice"? Do I talk about the weird feeling of betrayal I endured for feeling like I didn't really understand what my own boss was really saying to me, like I had a monopoly on understanding ALL and ANY Asians using English as a second language? Do I talk about the misappropriation, exploitation and plain illegal copyright infringement of a black brand for financial gain by this random, really nice actually, Korean man? He's nice but that doesn't make it right.

Or do I try to understand how it felt to be so hated by those black girls that called me racist when I'd catch them stealing. “Sitting up there like you somebody,” this one girl said to me and I was baffled.

I thought to myself, I’m 15 wearing a Youth of Today shirt and I’m watching you shoplift which pretty much indicates I’m nobody and on top of that, if anything, I feel entirely fucked up, guilty and just plain uncomfortable for performing a job that requires that I tell on you. Which in turn makes you think I hate all black people which is so insane because hello, look at me. Oh wait, do you not see it?

It took a long time for me to understand that people don’t see me the way I see myself and that that's NOT my problem. Furthermore, that it’s okay if I see myself as black and Filipino and then that I have the right to say yes, I’m black on top of all of that. And that saying all of this shouldn't erupt into a drawn-out emotionally heated debate. I get to say what I am, not you. I don't understand why everyone gets so upset about this.

But really, um, what does all that have to do with shoplifting? So wait, I'm racist because you're stealing? But one has nothing to do with the other. And why'd you have to throw in that Asian bit? And who are you calling little? I don't get it. People got so mad and I'd just be standing there with all this stuff, these conflicting and hilariously intense feelings floating around in my head. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t back then.

But shit, that was my job. It’s not every day the girl who is first chair on the violin offers you a job with her family where you get cold hard cash that night. Is that not hilarious? The Korean girl who was first chair on the violin offered me that job. I was like, True, good looking out! Little did I know, it’d be a social experiment that I’d carry with me forever. I didn’t have the words, then, to articulate.

Isn’t life funny that way?

At the last “job job” I held I reviewed medical records for this millionaire attorney specializing in nursing home litigation. Yes, I had to look at photos of someone’s mother or grandmother being neglected in a nursing home. Ants crawling in bed sores – all kinds of horrible, inhumane shit. They won almost all their cases, too. Good for them. Because of that job, Shorty and Mercy have to say something really really really terrible to me for me to say "I'll put you in a nursing home!" to them. I used to say it jokingly, but with that experience, abandoning my parents to leave them rotting in a nursing home is on some serious shit. I'd live with my parents in their old age in a tiny studio apartment if I had to, before I ever ever ever put them in a nursing home. No way.

Anyway, I got a job and I really like it. I like it so much it doesn’t feel like a job. Oh, and no I won't be blogging about it because that's how a fool gets fired. The Internet will destroy your life, for real. Yes, I want to tell you about the random French Pakistani dude that whispered, under his breath without moving his lips like a crazy ventriloquist, "come work for me in Brooklyn" on my first day, after he said he promised himself he'd never fall for a Filipina woman again and now, looking at me "he's in love." Um? Okaaay, but I'm Melissa from the Real World, sir. (?) Yes, I'd love to elaborate on that story, but damn elaborating would be as inappropriate as the incident itself and I'm trying to keep my job so no.

So that’s where I’ve been. How are you?

Posted by melissah at September 3, 2006 06:22 PM