Pretty Baby is the sort of non-threatening crush I need right now.

At least, that is what I keep on telling myself.

I hate being this age, though I'm pretty sure I'd hate being any other age a lot more than what I am right now: that early twentysomething. So I don't complain.

So I won't complain.

It's just that, there are certain expectations nowadays and at this age, so that Pretty Baby can't just be that non-threatening crush but Pretty Baby has to turn into something bigger.

There's something about us, on the internet and on our cell phones and in our everyday conversations, some insatiable need to discuss everything and so the more I discuss Pretty Baby, the more it turns into something I can't control.

Those non-threatening crushes are pretty wonderful in that they leave you room to manipulate the situation. You can grab it by the balls and take free reign and not care. I can stop liking when I want and start liking when the mood strikes and there are no consequences to those actions. It's just something small, inconsequential, and private. And clear! And for myself!

But then we keep on talking, and Pretty Baby becomes something entirely out of my hands. Our story arc becomes friendship fodder. My one-sided infatuation becomes a "story arc" in and of itself, and now there are expectations and goals. It's not merely a crush but a crush to be persued, and a crush to be questioned about, and a crush to (as I know my history) be crushed.

All I want to do is think about how lovely and short Pretty Baby's hair is, and how he seems older and serious and sadder without his glasses, and how that is all so fascinating, and my friends want to know how we have progressed, and what I think he's thinking. Another chapter to add to the other chapters when the situation should be open and close.

Life works so quickly that I immediately regret having written or thought one thing because it will change before my eyes.

Summer is not completely terrible.

And I don't really hate everyone.

And I haven't completely given up on a good, healthy relationship or good, healthy friendships.

Of course, as soon as I write this, things might change so spectacularly fast that I'll have to hit myself in the head to snap back to reality/pull my jaw up from the ground. 

If you're thinking it has something to do with feminism and music, you'd be correct. An excerpt:

Everyone else calls it no wave, or new wave, or post-punk, but my clit calls it “Yes!” and “Please!” and “Oh God, give me more!”

It connects – we connect – and the music is ours and everything makes sense. Who cares what Ian Curtis wails underneath the sparse riffs of “Warsaw?” When it’s just me, and my clit, it’s just the music – guttural, torrential, exquisite.

It is still hard for me to dress for the weather. I've become accustomed to covering myself so much so that I will spend hours in my closet, throwing items around, punching the wall. I will spend countless hours running back and fourth from down the block back to my apartment, not sure if I've worked up any confidence yet and this routine is frustrating in many, many ways.

It's July. 

I have a piece up at This Recording. It details my "relationship" with Kazuo Ishiguro and his characters (I hate them. I love them. I resent them. I find inspiration from them.)

I am occasionally (if I don't screw up) blogging for TimeOut Chicago. I have an internship there for the summer in the Art and Design section so I naturally did a review of a gallery show.  

I am interning at ALARM and TimeOut Chicago magazines

I lost a job.

I trained for another job and didn't get the position.

I made it through my finals.

I'm completely broke.

I met Joan Cusack.

I'm moving out of my apartment.

My credit card information was stolen.

I'm officially a senior in college.

...but yeah, how has your summer been going? 

This summer will be the first summer that I've worn a tank top in public in over 13 years and I'm scared shitless.

Since 2nd grade, I've been plagued with unfortunate scars on my back and shoulders. They're not from chicken pox. I wish people would stop insinuating such.

I went through months and months of treatment to "fix" my body. I lost weight and temporarily my sanity. In the fall, I came home from work and spent many hours lying on my back, staring at the ceiling. I'd look at the clock and two, three, sometimes four hours passed.

I knew those kind of actions would be possible side effects. I know my history.

That still didn't change the fact that I was scared and lonely and angry and bitter.

When I was younger, when the scars were still fresh, I used to cake on layers of stage makeup to cover up my skin when I tumbled at gymnastics performances and meets. When I was older, I didn't care as much. My high school years were spent on the dance team with a group of girls I've talked about for years, a group of girls who hated me because I wasn't like them, and because I didn't want to make the effort to be like them. I had to continuously make the decision whether or not I wanted to leave the team for good because of their attitudes and isolation, or if I wanted to stick it out because as much as they hurt me, my love of dance was greater.

I made it through my senior year.

I feel for it.

But during those years, we walked on auditorium stages and gymnasiums and football fields and I was so damn scared. I used to stretch in the corner where no one else could see me when we had to wear leotards. I sometimes changed in the staff locker room inside of our dance studio. And even up to seconds before our performances, I would wrap my upper body in jackets and sweaters and scarfs so no one would have to see me and say something. That was my greatest fear.

I knew the audience couldn't really see my body and so that didn't phase me.

But those girls, and their looks, and their gossip made me hate myself so much.

As a female, I understand we all struggle through body image issues, especially at that torrential age known as adolescence. But I had to deal with my height, and my weight, and my scars. 

Before one basketball game, an older girl on the team loudly proclaimed that she refused to touch my shoulder. Some other girls laughed. I walked away and cried. I told my coach about it later in the year, when I quit for the third time but the emotional damage was done. The night if that basketball game, at home, my parents in the other room, I boiled a pot of water and rubbed it against my back. I hadn't tried it before and in my confused, angry teenage mind I thought that it might make it all go away and that if my skin burned off, it would have to heal, and heal better then what it was before.

My plan didn't work, obviously. My back and shoulders were red and sore for a while, and I took to carrying my books instead of wearing a messenger back. No one really asked. I definitely was not going to tell them.

Only a handful of my closest friends know about my scars and I made sure to keep it that way. When I told them that I didn't wear tank tops, they were confused.

"Yes you do!" they'd exclaim.

No, I don't.

Or at least, no I didn't.

I programmed myself to keep cool through my legs in the summer, and I was so used to having my arms warm and clothed that even wearing a t-shirt gave me chills.

But now it's all over with and I don't know what to do. I'm still buying longer sleeved clothing items but it's so hot outside. I've purchased a couple of tank tops but I don't know what to do with them, and even the ones with the thickest straps make me feel exposed. I wore a tank dress for exactly 5 minutes last week, before I feared people were staring at me. Maybe they were, because my arms were crossed just so and I moved around like a paranoid child. At Argo Tea, I put my cardigan back on, even though they have no air conditioning, and the sun was blazing and my skin was sweating profusely.

"Are you okay?" the barista asked.

I ordered the coldest drink I could think of, without addressing his question and took a cab back to my apartment.  

I need you to not trivialize it, parents, by telling me to get over it.

In the middle of writing one out of the four papers due by this Wednesday, I started thinking about the past week or so, and how much of a disappointment things have been in general.

I’ve felt extremely sexually frustrated and embarassed by my sexual frustration, which is very confusing. I keep on seeing guys who remind me of exes and almost-exes and it’s making me sad and angry all at the same same.

And I’ve felt hyper-aware of my “otherness” - as a Black person, as a female, as a Black female, as a Black female without many Black interests - and I don’t know what to do about it. And I have no one to talk about it. And everyone I try to talk to about it thinks it’s funny, or silly, or not a big deal.

And last weekend, a drunk guy called me a “fat nigger bitch” when I went to meet up with some friends at a bar. And I just stood there, and he walked away, and I didn’t get to tell my friends because whenever I see my friends, they spend more time talking about themselves and their grievances.

I hate that I have somehow allowed this to happen. I am the one others fall back on. I am the great listener, the one with the good advice, and the one who makes rational decisions so much so that my friendships feel as though I am the therapist and my friends are checking in for their weekly session.

I had an asthma attack (which was probably more like a panic attack) on the bathroom floor of Argo Tea that was so painful, I started crying. It felt like my years of dance in high school, as I crouched underneath the water fountain after a performance during a competition, gripping my albuterol as my teammates simultaneously rolled their eyes and asked if I was okay. I felt like a spectacle then. I felt pathetic now. As a junior in college, I’ve never felt so stressed out as I do now. I’ve overbooked myself and I know it and my parents know it and they don’t care. I have to make up for the fact that I got fired by working two internships and a job and going to school full-time. My parents won’t say it, but I know that’s how they feel.

Sometimes the stress builds and I overeat. Sometimes the stress builds and my skin breaks out. But today the stress built and I couldn’t breathe and my chest was in pain. It’s been a year since I spent a year in therapy (paying for it myself, without telling my parents who don’t believe in most mental disorders (i’m not kidding) let alone therapy) and I’ve somehow gotten into an emotional bind when I was supposed to have “been better.”

I am “stressed out” and “in pain” and my parents tell me to “get over it.” I started crying on my way back to my aparment and then I didn’t, because, like my parents have always said, “crying doesn’t solve anything.”

and you’re the only Black person in class.

Of course, you don’t WANT to explain the historical context of most things written in the text, you just kind of HAVE to as it becomes quite obvious that we have been, and will continue to be, trained in white, Western literature. I understand where my classmates come from when they don’t understand because they haven’t continuously be taught any literature that is not white or Western, but it just sucks. I understand that my classmates do not have the personal history to relate to any of the literature, but no one seems to question whether or not I have the personal history to relate to any works that are a part of the white and Western canon. The assumption is that THIS canon is the only canon, and that because this is the ONLY canon, I must train myself to adapt to the characters and stories, even if they don’t in some way relate to my own life. Because it is the standard, it must be true. Because it is the standard, I must adapt. Because Black literature (or any other minority literature) is, yes, the minority, one can “clause out” of having to understand it, or relate to it, or study it on a regular basis. I understand all of this.