I'm freaked. There are only three weekends left after this for me to complete all work for term PLUS prep for the LSAT. There are not enough hours. I am officially screwed. Life sucks.
Simultaneously, I don't give a shit. In the grand scheme of life, what would really happen if I got - gasp - a B? Would Atlantis rise from the sea? Would Atlas shrug? Would the little people march down from the hills (in the Eskimo village I lived, that was the sign of Armageddon)?
No. Nobody would even care. It, my entire academic career really, is unimportant.
OK, so with that perspective, why am I even sticking around to finish up the term? Why not take off NOW??
A promise to a friend. To teach a GRE prep course this summer. I could bail on her, I guess, but I wouldn't. And it'll be much fun, and I'll make good money, and it's good to finish things I start. Just not a PhD. Not here, not now.
All I can think about is the energy it takes when I don't know where I'll sleep that night, and I don't want to get robbed, and everything is so new and different and overwhelming. I crave that. I also get annoyed with it before too long, but now it's just craving.
I have six hours more of interviews to transcribe for my qualitative project. I tried to force myself today. It made me physically ill, so I went shopping instead (and no, I am absolutely NOT into retail therapy - spending money also makes me ill, but in this case less ill than transcribing). I read Herb Kliebard, also something I have to do. Have to? No. Want to, to please. Why? Why? That's so messed up.
Today I came home and there were cars blocking my parking space - a party in a neighbor's garage which spilled into the parking lot. After some unclear pointing and directions, cars were moved and I got in, though did scrape my bumper. (Dents and scratches and scrapes on my truck, now nearly 3 years old, are becoming my pride. I refuse to buy a new damn car just because my truck is no longer pretty and I don't need it and would be happier with a Prius. Dammit, I'll drive this Tundra like the work truck it was purchased to be.)
I love my neighborhood in the PC kind of way. My neighbor downstairs is Asian (Chinese?), below to the right, Mexican. Next door to my right, white Mormons (he and I actually met in Spanish class a couple years ago), to my left, Black. Where else in the world is like this? And up and down the street are all sorts of different people. It's cool. Very cool.
When I chased a bunch of kids out of the laundry room a few weeks ago, there were were Black, White, Mexican, and Samoan kids. Playing together. That's very cool.
But hear that? I chased them out of the laundry room. And they were good about it and haven't been back, and I was nice. But they play loudly nearby. The damn ice cream truck effing lives on this cul-de-sac. And the parties of my Black neighbors are frequent and loud. I've called the cops several times - for walking past a group of guys smoking weed in front of my apartment, for the loud parties, that sort of thing.
Because that is the line, I guess. Let me enjoy the diversity and feel sanctimonious about all good in this country with racial progress and learning to live together, but when you're too loud I'll call the pigs on your ass.
I don't know how to reconcile that. Who am I to tell other people to be quiet? Those are my White middle-class values coming out loud and clear. And when I step outside and say, "Hey, guys, could you quiet down?" they say, "Sorry" and eventually move away. Every single person of all ages in this vicinity has been polite to me in response to my politeness. I have never felt threatened in any way. But I ain't walking into a loud, drunken party and say, "Hey, boys, I have to study, could you turn the music down?" Or, "Ah, niggaz, I ain' trippin, yo, but I gots to have my peace." Because I tell you, from my open window I have learned more Ebonics than UPN ever taught me. It's just passive knowledge because it's way to effing weird when I use it (despite Oronde's best attempts to teach me).
So am I racist? Our values collide. This is not some theoretical equality for all which I would march and petition and protest for. This is the right to party versus right to quiet. This is me pushing my values onto the immediate world and the neighbors in apartments #5 and #12 pushing theirs.
Though I have to admit, now that it's nearly midnight, it's silent out there. The party probably ended (or moved) before 10:00. Jose, our maintenance man, moved his family back into the apartment next to #12, and his influence is felt. Welcome back, Jose.
The thing about democracy and integration is that they're messy. There are dilemmas and tensions and unhappinesses. I could go live in some uppity white neighborhood and get all my silence, but I would hate it. I would miss the low riders bumping by, the contact highs, the laughter as a little girl races my truck, the practice my Spanish gets when the kids are yelling, the old poor people who cut across the courtyard in front of my apartment to get to their apartments, the stories I piece together from the snippets I overhear from the boys in apartment #5. I don't have to be nosy - I'm a part of the life. We all coexist in a messy noisy jumble and in the long run a few malt liquor bottles left lying around are so much better to me than the sterileness of much white life. They're young men having fun - they aren't driving drunk, they aren't stealing cars, they aren't committing violence, they aren't oppression or exploiting others.
This is all about why I love southern California. I cannot imagine any place making me happier and making me more frustrated. Because intellectually I can love the messy jumble, but I still love my quiet. And when I made the guest list for my going away party, I was shocked at how many white people I know. Out of 30 people I would think to invite - nobody Black (though some spouses are). WTF? I thought I had Black friends. Only six are Latino, four Asian, and six from another European(ish) country. Does like attract like? I come to arguably the most diverse place in the world, and my circle of friends looks a little like a Klan gathering. I live in complete diversity, but I wouldn't invite any of my neighbors. What does this mean? It's not as simple as that I'm racist and isolationist. There's a more complicated mechanism at work there. How do I meet people? Work and school - and where I taught was nearly exclusively white teachers. University classes, also pretty white. Friends from outside those two - a little more diverse, especially in terms of class. I don't even know where I'd place most of my friends in terms of class. I don't even know where to place me. I am a fervent Marxist despite myself, and class is the most important, but race also counts. Or I count race, like now. And am not proud of my stats.
Maybe I'm tired now. Or more miserable.
