When I look at me
I want to flee.
I long to be strong and swift
From my body my soul will lift.
Why must I be who I am?
Away from me I want to scram.
Someone who I'd rather be
Anyone who isn't me.
So I was wondering how long a girl could persist in having hot, sweaty lesbian sex with her roommate and avoid that errr... sordid, ungainly tempest called "the lesbian relationship." For me, it was five days in a row. Not bad, right? I guess the whole "processing" part of girl-on-girl interactions was something I didn't miss very much. Over the past year, I've been dating guys who I wouldn't necessarily describe as emotionally unavailable --a better way of saying it would be that all the guys I dated last year were on a wavelength that, when crossed with mine, produced silence.
Fifi is mad that I've cast so many aspersions against (in no particular order): lesbian folk music, Billy Idol, zodiac signs, The Zen of Motorcycle Fixing, low carb diets, decaffeinated tea, and -above all- spoken word poetry --in particular contempt for the Bay Area's darling, Baya de Bologne. She's particularly peeved that I describe myself as "the motherfucker who doesn't do Yoga." She's angry that half of the album covers in my CD collection show guys pointing M 16s at each other --and that I call those the "happy" albums.
Last year I wrote a list of all the words I associate with sex: anger, power, violence, dick, control, blood, wet, lust, gold chains, slap. I showed it to a counselor, and she asked me to make a list of words that described me. So I wrote: chaotic, angry, clumsy, impatient, stubborn. To which she quipped, c'mon, rachel, don't you have anything positive to say? I thought about it for a moment, and then added: sexy.
But I digress again. On the morning of Ghetto-opoly, Paul Smith called me up fromt the Gazette office, asking me -no, telling me- that it would be best if we played at my house (It was the kind of "I was wondering if ..." that actually translates "Listen, bitch ...."). I guess it's because he has a wife, or something, and obviously he's not gonna get his dick sucked when she's around --moreover, a fawning younger writer would think nothing of hosting a bunch of drunk, obnoxious guys in her apartment until 3 in the morning, condemning herself to a week of complaints from cranky, sleep-deprived roommates.
I guess he was right. I swallowed my anger and said okay. Throughout the day I would think about it with a mixture of anger and titillation --after all, I was also curious about the other players, and shit, for as long as I've been writing, I don't think I've been the subject of anybody's article before --the closest I've come are those letters to the editor about what a fucked-up bitch that Ghetto Sublime is (the one from 2 Mex's label manager was a career highlight for both of us). At the time, I worked afternoons filing tax forms and receipts for this woman named Rosa (I'd tell people, just imagine if Sunspot Jonz were a 65 year old Afro-Carribean woman with really salty views about race). I got off early and rode my bike from her Lakeside apartment to my North Oakland garrett --where Paul was already waiting for me.
He'd brought two packs of powdered donuts, a bag of pork rinds and some Colt 45 --traditional ghetto fare, I guess. Actually, at first we were genuinely happy to see each other. We shot the breeze for a while --swapped anecdotes about my interview with Keak Da Sneak and his interview with Jesus Christ (which, I thought, might have been taking it a little too far)-- until a slick red sports car rolled up in the parking lot, and out climbed Petey Pedrito, in his signature red jersey and wavecap, jangling about twenty sets of keys.
And immediately, I was smitten. All I could think was, "oh my, look at the size of those chains."
Posted by yorachelswan
at 3:55 AM EDT
