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December 05, 2006

Ajax

My dad just called over here talking about, “All right baby, look. Somebody done broke into my computer.”

Thinking he meant “computer room” I said, “Is it gone?”

He said, “No but I clicked on the Safari and the window all small and shit. I can’t see that! I need Billy Ray Vaughn glasses to see that!”

“What?”

No seriously, Who is Billy Ray Vaughn and what about his glasses? I don’t get it.

“The box is too small. It used to fit across the whole damn screen. I clicked on Safari and the box all small!”

Okay, now I’m understanding that he means the actual little window of what it is he’s looking at is minimized somehow. I just got an Apple too and I hate it because I don’t know how to use it so I usually use my raggedy little HP side by side. Right now, I’m using Word on my HP and when I have to post this, I’ll switch up the wires like an asshole and then switch back. Anyway, I get onto the computer to try to help him.

I tell him to open an Internet box. I tried saying open a webpage, any webpage you want and he couldn’t decide where to go or what to type so I was like, Well just click Safari and your home page should come up. He was completely confused. So I blurted out “open an Internet box” and he understood and said, “All right, I went to MacDill.” Um, that’s adorable.

I said, See the baby diagonal lines in the bottom right hand corner?

He said he didn’t.

We discussed this for about five minutes. All the while, he’s repeating, “They done broke in my computer. God damn it! Somebody done fucked this up.”

I keep trying to calm him down, assuring him that no one has broken into his computer. I was like, Sometimes the settings go crazy and you just have to look around to try to fix it. He was still very upset.

I somehow managed to teach him to drag and click to make the window bigger but it still was not to his liking. He then yelled, “Gotdamn!”

And I said, “Oh no, what!”

And he said, “Now the font so got damn big.”

I’m just holding the line, listening to him peck around the computer. He’s mumbling to himself.

I don’t know why I ever bought this computer. Don’t nobody need no computer no way. I told them don’t mess with my things. I don’t bother nobody else stuff, so why? Why they mess with mine…

Suddenly, I think he figured something out because he just goes, “All right. Love you. Gotta go.”

And that was that.

I’m keeping a log of all computer related issues my dad has.

The first email I ever got from him said:

What u sister.ijust typed this to show you i got mac’d.

Which I took to mean “What up, sister! I just typed this to show you I got a new Mac computer and here is my email address…”

By sister, he had to mean “nubian princess daughter,” right?

To be sure I wrote back:

?

Daddy!

I’m so happy you have email now. Now you’ll just have to check it regularly. You never check your voice mail so…

Did you get an Apple or a PC?

He wrote back a week later with the subject “I checked my email – and what!”

And he said:

I got your email and I’m writing back. I have the MacBook, the cheapest one which is expensive still. I make Marlene type my letters because I can’t type. Don’t worry. She said she’s going to make me type my own letters so I can have privacy. Anyway, hollaback atcha boy! I love you.

Dad

Hollaback atcha boy, though daddy? I was thinking to myself, “don’t worry” about what? Why does he need privacy to talk to one daughter while using the other daughter to actually communicate? I was picturing my sister rolling her eyes as she typed. And sure enough…

The email had a post script which said:

Melissa: I won’t be typing anymore of these letters for him. If I’m within earshot, it’s so painful to hear the frustrated tap-tap and I can hear his brain struggling to locate keys. Don’t worry. This was a one-time event. Oh, and today we went online and found one of his Katrina victim friends. They’re on the phone now. Amazing! He’s so happy.

He just started reading my blog too. When I wrote The Dash, which was about me getting to see some of my family when my uncle passed, I guess he read it. Or my sister told him to go read it because while I was editing and re-writing, I was reading it to her over the phone and she was HOWLING, rolling. I was like, “Is it that funny?” and she was like, “Oh my God yes! It’s hilarious.” But she’s my sister so she has to say that. Plus “Nucreesha” is her mom too, so she gets it. Anyway, six years later my daddy is reading my blog!

He sent me an email about my blog that said:

Your blog was some funny shit… ... Got to drive Nacreesha to the eye doctors. Love you and will E-mail you later, your dad.

To hear it from my dad was really warm? I don’t know how to describe it. My mother has always liked the way I write and expressed this much. Shorty – does the man know that I write? I mean, not that he’s not involved per se. He’s just always been in his own little world. He was a smidge late for my brother’s high school graduation because he had to stop off and get some Chap Stic and chicken. He got to see him walk though. I mean, if he’d have missed that debacle, we’d all have been pissed. Mike’s graduation cap kept falling off because at that time he was rocking an afro and he didn’t like the job my mother did bobby-pinning the cap to his head so he tried to gingerly walk with the cap on his head, all not secured and shit. Yeah, we’re still trying to figure that one out. The Chap Stic and chicken part – well, shit all of it, I guess. He’s just my dad. I’ve stopped trying to discern what he actually knows about our lives because what he doesn’t know is so much more interesting.

I mean, when he asked J “What are you man?” And J responded, “I’m Jewish, of Ukranian descent” my father responded, “Oh shit, like Jimmy the Greek!”

J said, “No, Ukranian.”

He said, “Yeah, Jimmy Armenian,” as if to say Jimmy is Armenian.

J’s like, “Cool. I’m Jewish though.”

“Yeah, that’s cool. That’s what I’m saying. Like Jimmy the Greek. His name was Bob.”

Bob, who is my brother’s godfather, is Armenian. His name is not Jimmy, but they call him that I guess. What Greece has to do with any of this, I don’t know. Getting ethnicities right has never been a Howard expertise. My Uncle Corn still thinks my mom is Vietnamese, but you know, whatever. My point is, with Shorty and Mercy as parents, you stop trying to explain everything or even get explanations. You just listen and in that, I know and feel that he loves us.

Anyway, my mom’s always loved my writing.

She tells me the story of how in second grade, the teacher sent me home with a note. Mrs. Ludke sent home a note about me and my mom thought I was in trouble until she read it. Mercy’s told me this story one thousand times. She said I’d finish my work and then write short stories. Originally Mrs. Ludke didn’t like that I’d always have my nose in my notebook, but my work was always perfect (S+, actually was the highest grade) and I’d write to pass the time while all the other kids were completely those useless dittos. She said my stories were pretty good. So my mom would always say, “You are a good writer. Just natural!”

So I have always carried that with me. Even though…

Even though, Mercy is the one that destroyed my first ever published news story in my college newspaper. My best friend took the time to frame my first published piece. Years later, when I came home to visit from LA, a couple months after that whole Real World thing, my mom had taken the framed piece and “re-purposed” it. She took all the photos of herself with my Real World castmates and made a photo collage right on top of the article I’d written. Just taped them all down on top of the newspaper. I feel like I've told you this before, perhaps. Or that I've wanted to share this but hesitated for fear that people would misunderstand what Mercy did as malicious, when really, it's just Mercy which is more oblivious meets bizarre meets adorably sweet than malicious. Seriously, she's been on the collage kick for a decade now. She cuts up photos and glues or tapes them down to any surface, really. She even cuts up magazines I appeared in, thinking it's a good thing. This is why I buy her a couple copies. One for keeping, one for cutting.

Ironically (or interestingly, whichever works because it’s Mercy who the hell knows?), I was in NONE of the photos because I took them. The collage is still hanging. In what used to be the formal dining room, but is now the kitchenette because my parents are insane and decided to make the casual living room the dining room, making the dining room the casual eating area. The formal living room is still formal – like, no one is allowed to touch anything in there with the exception of Mercy because she had her Filipino satellite TV set up in there. So, surrounded by her Japanese dolls in glass curio boxes, all the doilies, the brass peacock cut-out lamps with the shades with the plastic still on them, she sits watching her Filipino news, crying sometimes. Sometimes yelling out tidbits, “My God, dat bolcano ruin dat too!”

To watch regular TV, you have to go to what's now the casual living room which used to be the screened in patio. But with a little bit of glass and tile and TiVo, it's now the "den" which is the worst place in the world to watch television in Florida because it constantly rains. With the rain, comes noise. And since the thing that catches all the water from the roof drained on the side of the patio which is now the den, there's lots of noise. We solve this problem by turning the volume up super loud. The metal roof, which has replaced the gorgeous Spanish tile roof we used to have, probably isn't helping either. I remember coming home another time and seeing this new metal roof and my dad was standing in the front yard to greet me with his arms wide open as if to say Look at the beautiful roof! I replied, "Roof there it is!" all sarcastically, but he didn't note the sarcasm and repeated, "That's right, roof there it is baby. Shit's hot, huh?"

Yep, that Shorty is a do-it-yourselfer. Mercy has no say, but she doesn't care as long as she has the Filipino satellite. Ugh, I'm getting old. What used to slightly annoy me about them now makes me miss them so much. A part of me misses the "offness" of home. I'm getting all sentimenal. Time to wrap this up. Nip/Tuck is starting soon anyway. They're fixin' to take that baby's organs, hot damn.

Oh and P.S.

I too have been appalled by the many many times I’ve seen Britney Spears’ vagina, possibly breast-milk stained dresses and what looks like a C-section scar in the past couple of weeks, but it’s like – I’m a grown ass woman. Can I really spend ten minutes writing a blog about another grown ass woman’s privates and the fact that I wonder if she’s applying vitamin E serum to her scar?

Yes.

Dude.

Let’s just start with the weave.

GIRL.

I know she’s self-conscious about her hair. But doesn’t being self-conscious about something mean you try your hardest to conceal that part of you? Or at least keep that part of you looking its absolute best at all costs. For example, for 50-11 years I was quite self-conscious about the size and sheer breadth of my lips. For this reason, you will never see me without my balms. Applied generously all day every day. If they’re going to be big, they may as well be glossy and moisturized.

Now the pussy. I hate the word too, but in this case it’s so called for. There’s nothing else really to say. I mean, LOOK AT IT. Because it’s there! You can look all day, for free, zoom in if you want. There it is. Lips and all. Just staring back at you, hoping you stay on that screen and don’t flip back to Zappos Couture. Here’s the pussy for all to see. Yep, that’s what they look like. Two lips, part in the middle – she’s right on par with the other members of the gender. Good for her! (Read: HOLY SHIT!)

Is she serious? How is this happening? Damn Paris. Help your fucking friend. No friend of mine would allow this. I wouldn’t allow this to happen to my friends. Wait, am I actually pleading for PARIS HILTON to help somebody in a more precarious situation than herself? Britney Spears is in worse shape than Paris Hilton?

I don’t even want to talk about this anymore. It’s a shame. It really is. It’s depressing actually. I just keep thinking maybe I can’t have a little girl. If my little girl becomes a nasty two-bit ho just by looking at tabloids or watching the television, I’ll just die. I’m going to have to be one of those super protective mean moms that hides her Flavor of Love DVD box set behind the washer and dryer. I’ll have to sneak to the computer late at night to look at my celebrity gossip and then empty history and clear cache so she’ll never know. All the while LYING about the fact that I think all celebrity gossip is disgusting and should be ignored.

I thought I’d be able to share my tabloid obsession with my daughter, just as my mother shared her tabloid obsession with me, but the tradition stops here. I mean, it was all so simple back then. Even to the point where tabloids were used as positive lessons. My mother would take out the Enquirer and say, “Meleesa look at dis one. Dat baby hab pour extra pinger. Yeah, dat’s why you cannot drink dat water straight from dee hose, I told you dat already!” Every major deformity in those tabloids, including the one with the baby that grew a thigh out of its back, could have been avoided by never drinking the water. And I believe that. And I only drink purified water. See! Thank you Mercy.

Because of Britney’s pussy, my child will be robbed of the joy, the process of being able to simultaneously feel better and worse about yourself by flipping through a magazine about people who have way more money than you, some for absolutely no reason. When my daughter is 18, I will show her the Britney photos and say, “This is what I’ve been protecting you from! This is why I threw that can of Ajax at your back while you were scrubbing the bathroom floor as punishment for sneaking that issue of US Weekly into your bedroom when you were 9.”

It’s all over now. All the celebrity gossip will just get nastier and nastier. Titties everywhere, crack dens all about. This one’s starving. That one’s a pedophile. This one’s cutting her coke with strawberry Nesquik. Crystal methamphetamines on that ass. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Shit is interesting, but cool world we live in. Damn.

Posted by melissah at December 5, 2006 09:30 PM