It's only 1am and my eyelids feel heavy. A different smell, feel, ambiance. I'm cold. The floor isn't warm and soothing like at home, but there is life in the house. I have the remote, but I do not press. I have no interest in staying up watching mindless TV and suffering the next day. I drift off into a deep sleep. Awoken by the sound of a bird or a car, I sit up. I struggle to get out of the metal framed bed trapped inside a couch. The somewhat uncomfortable bed, hidden inside, is a metaphor of sorts for how I feel. Jovial on the outside, but struggling with the rigidity of life. I grab the arm and boost myself. The chill of the wood floor is soon missed as I step into the kitchen. Icicles pierce my toes. I head to the bathroom and feel a draft. I skip past the dining room table and hop back into the warm confines. I'm restless. I listen to some music, read some news. J.R. is dead. The world will recognize him more than the child killed in Gaza last night. It's how our lives have become. Who shot J.R.? More important to most of our lives than who shot Qaddafi. I read more about Kim Kardashian's pants and how a snow storm might hit up here in Ithaca. I feel colder reading about the snow. The placebo placed in my ever turning mind. I try to think of heat, but think of those in Breezy Point's fires and become sad. I see pics on social media of people shopping on one page and people lining up for food on another. The division of our interests defines us. Friends still posting pictures from their Thanksgivings, a montage of real and forced smiles. Faces full of food, begging not be captured. I watch a movie scene that brings tears to my eyes. I watch it at least once a week. What is gained and what is lost in three minutes. You need to see it and to know me to understand. Those people are few and far between. I can't get certain people out of my head. If you think it's you, it's probably not. I wish I looked like I did at 17, but with my mind. I wish I had the money I had at 21, but with my frugality. I check the tracking on a package. A gift for Dad. We no longer really exchange, but that's a lie. I don't. I'm thinking selfishly. Part of me wants to be home. Watching football with friends. Part of me wants to never leave. Drinking coffee that cools to quickly and listening to repetitious banter from a women nearing a century. In an hour the creatures will wake and the hustle and bustle of five people in a tiny kitchen will commence. I better go back to bed. Catch one more hour between the sheets. In my dream last night was joined by a pretty face, but don't get me wrong, my dreams are not lurid; she smiled and turned, so that I'd have something to hold onto in the cold. I long for that, if only to be warmed from the inside.
This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo
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