this is my (half-hearted) goodbye to myspace.

this is me now.

bookmark? yeaaah.




i love you all. even the ones i don't love.

It is too early for your make-up.

But your wit is past-due.

I came across this today. I remember trying to write it but feeling completely incapacitated. I cried. As per usual.

I frequently go to the movies alone; not by default or because I've no one to go with, but out of my own free will. There is something about sitting cross-legged in a theatre, assigning an individual seat to each of my belongings i.e. my coat, my purse, and my shopping bags, and attempting to single-handedly conquer an entire Combo Number 1 (large drink, large popcorn, small candy) that I find overwhelmingly appealing.

I also quite enjoy being the brunt of other moviegoers' pitying stares, myself empowered by the knowledge that I, unlike my overly self-conscious and socially needy peers, am confident enough to watch a movie alone: I am confident enough to purchase my own ticket and disgustingly overpriced concessions. I am confident enough to withstand the hand-holding and face-sucking undertaken by pimply teenagers in the last row without feeling inadequate.

Today, however, I drowned in the abyss of the theatre, longing for a hand to hold, a thigh to dig my fingers into, a warm pat on the back: anything to counteract my hot, salty tears and beating heart. Alas, my large popcorn and the layers of butter that accompanied it were not enough to steady my quivering lips.

Graphic war scenes and surround sound make for a dreadful combination. If you have a firsthand experience of war, the sights, sounds and smells become crystal clear, as do a medley of thoughts, fears and improvised prayers.


This reminded me how badly war sucks. Doesn't it?

Those people that are affected most by its ruthlessness tend to be those people that are least involved in it. The poor, who become the poor, the helpless, the hopeless.

Here I am writing a useless blog that only a handful of people will read. Maybe Jahmal will leave a comment. Who knows, maybe he'll even kudos me.

But the fact remains that I am writing a blog on my thousand dollar computer under my hundred dollar duvet on my four hundred dollar mattress in my thousand dollar apartment wearing my thirty dollar panties stroking my eighty dollar haircut thinking about my million dollar dream. My million dollar dream that a little boy in Bouake will find the thirty cents he needs to eat a full meal.

All of you, suck an egg.

This summer I came to the startling realization that I am not the only one; I am not alone. And as the leaves lose their vigor and the wind blows a little bit harder, I'll know that I'm not as special as I once thought. Don't feel sorry for me, though, 'cause there is no better feeling than being understood, than discovering that you are not a freak after all.


Isn't it reassuring to know that different experiences, different choices, and different paths can lead us to the same people? The same thoughts? The same fears and securities? Where we are now is not where we will be forever. There will be different bra sizes, different friends, different lovers, yet they will all be the same: pit stops, each with their own significance and their own drunken nights.


I know that there are many of us, trapped between our parents' ambition and our own jaded visions of the future. We fit some moulds and break others, following instinct and culture and piercing police sirens. Either way, we understand each others' struggles to please ourselves, to please our inner immigrant, to counteract everything that admonished us to the refugee status, the political asylum that left us stranded in this land of soy milk and fat-free honey.


My jeans may be cleaner than yours and your choice of music a little more punk, but essentially we are the same: shamed beings trying gingerly to claw our way through this black stereotype, this arab stereotype, this muslim stereotype, this african stereotype, this youth stereotype, this creative stereotype, these skinny jeans and this american apparel, this hipster uniform that is accepted only by those who truly don't matter; this indie music and those synths, these blond boys and these pancake-bum girls, these hippies and eco-scene kids.


Despite their accusations, their mockery, their adherence to silly boundaries, we aren't too black or too white: no, we are black enough, pretty enough, smart enough. And that, my friends, is where it begins.

Yonge&Eglinton on a Saturday is
full of chai tea and Tai-chi in the park,
strollers and bibs and shopping bags,
absent fathers and preoccupied mothers—
who play polo and bridge and bake low-carb zucchini loafs
while their children play patty-cake and hide-and-seek in Tagalog;

Starbucks and merlot at the Pickle Barrel,
but the open-minded ones,
hippies and nigger-lovers,
enjoy jasmine rice and Thai food with ice-cold water and
glasses of milk 'cause ethnic food sure is spicy;

skinny jeans and dirty vans and
kids who wished their parents drove mini-vans,
not gas-guzzling Escalades and
dad's sexual escapades are:
far more humiliating than the low-income kids
who shop at goodwill,
out of necessity, not by choice, and
then they hang around the dark alleys behind the subway
smoking cigarettes and drinking beer and beefeater gin
summoning up the courage to step on mom's Persian rug with their muddy shoes on.

Nigger, they say.

Nigger, nigga, niggas, niggaz,
Jerome, Keisha, Shaneika, Lakwanda, Keshawn.

You may be,
You may be, a
Nigger, nigga, negro.

You may be, a
'halfbreed hottie'
'caramel cutie'.

You may be, a
Thug, pimp,
Gangster, gangsta, gangbanger.

Nigger, they still say.

You may be, a
Ballplayer, baller, baller, shotcaller.
You may be,
'Balliiiiiiiin'.

You may be, a
Rhodes scholar,
Gold-medalist, olympian,
Mother, grandmother,
Multi-millionaire,
Head-of-state,
Andre Leon Talley,
Tiger Woods.

You may be.

But they'll still say,
Nigger, nigga, negro with a weave, a big booty and a big dick.

I am not an especially devout follower of the Catholic church and you may not be either, yet I am sure you agree with me entirely when I inform you, with much sorrow and disdain, that this year the bazaar and festival of an unnamed Portuguese church located conveniently at Dundas & Grace was sponsored by Molson Canadian beer.

WHAT????????????????

The image this conjures up, of old Portuguese women getting crunk at the church bazaar, is not a pleasant one and is actually reminiscent of the sordid youtube sketch comedies of grannies doing ridiculous, yet ridiculously popular, hip hop dances that I despise. Yes. I despise the youtube videos and the hip hop dances that have marked my people falling further and further to the wayside.

Yes, some call me a hater. Bah. Who cares?!

On to other news, (Jahmal and) I attended the DMC Canada Finals this past Friday. It was great until I came to realize the degree to which hip hop has been stripped of its melanin. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with Whites and Filipinos. Let them by all the vinyls they want and wear all the Air Force 1s in the world and speak with all the fake American accents they can think of.

Actually.
No.
Scrap the fake American accents. There is nothing lamer.

However, the point remains:

where have all the black kids gone?



What a shame, they have moved to Ajax.

This is going to be a personal entry, far from entertaining but maybe you'll care.

Today, I am sad. I am sad and bored and depressed and fed up. I am not sure what it is I'm doing other than spending time and spending money. You must feel like this sometimes, just (I hope) less frequently than me and my stupid head.

I've just changed my major to professional writing and I'm looking forward to that. In fact, it is probably the only reason I'm still here and not back in Tunis eating turkey chawarmas and spending nights with the people that used to be my friends. It is probably the only reason I'm not in Tunis writing something similar from a much slower internet connection on my dad's stupid Compaq. It is probably the only reason I'm not going to lame clubs every night and eating the same stale pizza from the same dirty all-hours fast food spot by the beach.

I suppose, then, it is the only reason I am in Toronto eating McDonalds every night and watching reality tv with a boy I almost hate. It is the only reason my eyes are burning from my stupid MacBook and the stupid books I read that are more enthralling than my stupid life. It is the only reason I have split ends and no money and a heavy ass mirror that will probably spend all of its days in all of its packaging, rested against an empty wall that will surely stay empty. It is the only reason that I have so many shoes and nowhere to wear them too. It is the only reason I have a closet full of winter coats to protect me from the cold that will leave me depressed even if it doesn't manage to make my teeth chatter.

You see? I told you I was depressed.

I had planned to write about how excited I am for school and that I haven't been excited for September since I was in elementary school and wanted nothing more than to show off my new clothes and my shiny one-buckle Powerblades. I had planned to write about how I'm so excited for school to start that I've had many a dream about it.

Yes, it's true. I've dreamt about the first day of classes. Yes, it's true. I'm a Nerd. I dream about everything I think and everything that consumes me. If you know me, you know that means I'll dream about school and the Carps and Hector, the main man of my life.


Boo.

I suck.

During a conversation about drunken customer service and rude (often, incomprehensible) customers, I found myself conjuring up memories of a time when phone calls to my wireless company were impossible.

We often, in the "West", fail to appreciate the luxury of customer service. Only in nations this wealthy, (this superficial) and this fortunate can the concept of customer service via 24-hour call centers be fathomable.

When I lived in Abidjan, I couldn't call Telecel if my service was spotty. I didn't even have their telephone number and it's a sad, sad thing that I have 1-800-ROGERS-1 memorized.

We are so lucky.

We can call our cable company at 3 o'clock in the morning to order porn.

Aren't we lucky?

We are so lucky.

We can go to Dominion at 6 o'clock in the morning to buy brioches.

We buy brioches at 6 o'clock in the morning while little Beninois village children haul dirty water from wells.

We are certainly lucky.


What am I talking about? I bought a Michael Kors skirt last week. That makes me a hypocrite, eh?

Avril Lavigne has a song with Lil' Mama (of the unfortunate "my lip gloss be poppin'" fame). Yes.

I'm sure you live in a delusional world where, fortunately for you, the faux-punk garbage that is Avril Lavigne and the equally lame hip-pop that is Lil' Mama are far, far apart. I pray that in this delusional world of yours, this will be the first and last time you see this video (I've included it only because I doubt you'd believe me otherwise):




Here's to hoping you didn't feel compelled to watch the entire video.

In case you did, the following is a video that will SURELY make you feel TONS better about yourself and your integrity which I imagine you began doubting as soon as you came to realize that this blog, and that video, have just shattered your fantastic, delusional world: