I spent last night tweeting out my thanks to a slew of people, but I wanted to save the most important person for last: me. Thanks 2 Tupac for the headline. It always feels good to say you’ll do something and look back a week later to realize, “She did that.”
Last Tuesday I went to the Yaeji concert and wrote some things and shot my shot. On Wednesday I woke up to news my cousin’s friend’s father in Durham was murdered outside his home, down the street from the house I grew up in. He was a Chinese man who owned a restaurant. The words “hate crime” bubbled in my mind and I sat on the toilet, where most of my thinking occurs, and cried, a deep fear affirmed for me – the fear that during this era we, who are not white, who are made to feel like our lives are small and insignificant, who receive no protection from the police because they are not here to protect us, are all unsafe.
I ran off to an interview that afternoon to get a second job at my friend’s café place, where I will be serving bougie people while really intending to work out my arms. My work hours are about to be 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., but I’ll be making money to sustain myself and I’ll have weekends totally free, which is amazing. If the time comes to leave my first job, then the time comes. I’m thinking end of summer.
Thursday I went to a show at the Peppermint Club in North Hollywood. I think I would’ve been turned away had I not been dressed up and blasé about it, as I typically am, because the vibes were very stuck up. I don’t like places with empty reserved seating. I was there to see Lexii Alijai, but the event was mediocre, so I people watched, made bartenders mad by ordering water, and sat at the reserved seating anyways. It was a weird venue for this Girl’s Night show to go down and I later realized it was hosted by an Instagram-famous Rachel-Dolezal brand of women who has nothing to her name, but clout and a sense of entitlement in a space she doesn’t belong. She was a mess irl. If you have to shout “More tequila!” more than once, something’s not going right.
Saturday I took the bus to the Renegade Craft Fair and looked at all the nice things. I’m still too poor to afford anything crafty, but I got to see Sarlis who is an artist I have supported for a while – half the time without realizing it – and after I walked to an art gallery to finally check out a John Yuyi exhibition. Then I bounced to go to the L.A. Times Festival of Books because I wanted to make the most of the green room wristband the PEN coordinator said I’d be getting. The funny thing is, I don’t think she even knew what that wristband was going to grant me… Wink.
A STOR¥ BY ? 